Phoebe Philo - Designer

[jeanclaude]

Saw the third edit...and I saw acid-washed denim!! Bye Phoebe!!

 

[LadyJunon]

I'm actually going to disagree with you and say that the clothes have changed quite a bit since her tenure at Celine.

I can definitely see a strong sexual, brutalist undercurrent that wasn't present in her work at Celine. The colour preferences always veer towards neutrals, but the tones used are considerably harsher compared to her mostly soft neutral palettes at Celine. Her silhouettes retain that strong vertical line, but outside of a few coats, everyrthing is cut much closer to the body. We don't really see any billowy coats and dresses here.

I think that what she needs to do is style and shoot the clothes differently.

She's already embraced the moody grit in her designs, so why not bring it into her worldbuilding. The black, sooty grey and leather heavily imply that the Philo woman could be a nightcrawler. Imagine the look with that scarf-coat-thingy paired styled slicked-back hair and a bold red lip being shot in a gritty London alley at midnight. Add the red logo as a nice contrast against the dark colours.

That would stick out a lot next to the very clean, tasteful, polite images of her competitors.

 

[tricotineacetat]

Idk, I find the criticism over her brand being “too old-Celine” tired. Her brand isn’t even a year old yet. If Hedi Slimane had his own namesake brand, the clothes and presentation would be virtually the same as they were at Dior Homme, SL, and Celine. She started Celine from scratch and had multiple covetable hits, so I think it was smart for her to self-reference for her brand. Every designer that worked under Philo referenced their old-Celine work (Blazy, Lee, and Do). Plus, its not really her fault that old-Celine is the foundation of most brands’ aesthetic.

To me, her brand cements the fact that you can give someone the ingredients, but the recipe won’t be the same. I love the most recent edit and I’m so excited to see more.

As I was implying earlier, it comes down to timing, positioning and presentation of her brand. She launched her collection after much delay at a point when the market was overcrowded of brands that are copying her Celine collections for years and all that she did by the time of her launch was to put up an e-commerce with next to no presentation, other than a few lo-fi lookbook photos. Such way of presenting your newly-founded label puts all eyes on the product itself, which happens to be very highly priced, yet relying mainly on the authority of her name, not providing her customer an 'added value' (other than the headache of a seemingly disfunctional return process).

All of these factors don’t really align to a compelling whole and with the times moving on since her departure from Celine, I wonder how much loyalty her customers have when they certainly have build up relations with other brands existing in the niche left behind by her Celine.

I’m sure she still has a few super-devoted fans but I highly doubt people who only marginally followed her before are willing to go through the lengths and buy from her based on how uninviting it is at the present moment.

 

[PDFSD]

She needs to hire Pieter Mulier to bring her in to the 2025 vibez.

 

[philophile]

Idk, I find the criticism over her brand being “too old-Celine” tired. Her brand isn’t even a year old yet. If Hedi Slimane had his own namesake brand, the clothes and presentation would be virtually the same as they were at Dior Homme, SL, and Celine. She started Celine from scratch and had multiple covetable hits, so I think it was smart for her to self-reference for her brand. Every designer that worked under Philo referenced their old-Celine work (Blazy, Lee, and Do). Plus, its not really her fault that old-Celine is the foundation of most brands’ aesthetic.

To me, her brand cements the fact that you can give someone the ingredients, but the recipe won’t be the same. I love the most recent edit and I’m so excited to see more.

I love this part that I've highlighted in bold so much. It's so true!!!! And this is exactly why I disagree with a previous comment from another user on this thread asking why PP doesn't just 'change her aesthetic'. That makes me partly believe that this type of comment can only come from someone who is not a creative (designer, artist, musician, filmmaker, etc). The overall style of what you create is based on personal life experiences, education, background, personal taste, character, sensibilities etc, it doesn't just come out of the blue, since it's a representation of who you are. It's not like a musician like Steve Reich will suddenly change the aesthetics of his music to another like contemporary hip hop, just because he chooses to. It doesn't work that way. Even if she has a million copycats, the advantage is that no one can replicate her creativity, because as much as someone tries to recreate her work, it didn't come from their personal experiences, education, background, personal taste, character nor sensibilities. There's so much more where all that initially came for.

 

[PDFSD]

She needs to hire Pieter Mulier to bring her in to the 2025 vibez.

i was joking,...... of course not lol she is a better creative director then Pieter (not that he is the worst before his fan come for me again )