Phoebe Philo - Designer

[IsabelMarantBoy]

The current set of "tasteful minimalists" would have a stroke if she dared to release a collection like this today, especially with this sort of "bad taste" styling.
View attachment 1319184
Source: AnOther Magazine

What I wouldn't give for Phoebe or her children to design some bad taste looks like this! I also loved her bohemian years at Chloe, give me something like F/W 2002 or S/S 2005 please

I am so tired of the rich art gallery owner look that has been plaguing fashion since she brought the look to the forefront of fashion, we need to move on and realize that we can make clothes where the person's body is actually visible beneath the fabric.

As someone who once had a closet full of Celine, I did admire her work at the time, but since then I've parted ways with it all and sold it off/gifted it to people. I was actually kind of hyped when I heard she was launching her own label, but seeing her output and the ridiculous pricing she's sticking with, it just feels so cold and unattainable.

 

[Lola701]

Yeah, the oversize thingy is exhausting. Someone pointed out on the 'Why is the fashion industry in the state that it is now' that it is simply a trick the fashion industry has adopted at large in order to cut costs/increase profits and it truly makes sense.

Overall, if I think of PP, even though we can partly blame her for the masculine and oversized shapes that have been predominant in the past 10 years, I still mostly think of her feminine silhouettes or a playful mixture of different things resulting in something that has just the right amount of whimsical. As a Philophile, I am more inspired by and kind of addicted to this principle of combining opposing things and "cleaning it up. Making it strong and powerful" as she once said rather than copypasting her entire aesthetic. This principle can be applied to literally anything resulting in endless possibilities for design and style, that's why her work is so copied, it's an entire universe of creativity.

Come to think of PP's oeuvre, it was never groundbreaking in individual pieces or particular collections, it was her body of work and its overall everlasting impact what can be considered the latter. This is why I think people who are suddenly expecting a Margiela Version 2.0 or the impact of Phoebe's 9 years of work at Céline compiled and squeezed into only two collections to be unrealistic and unable to see the whole picture, besides the fact that this is an emerging label with a limited budget barely starting to undergo construction. Haters always gonna hate.

She does what she believes in and I strongly believe that the people who are going to Phoebe Philo are going for a fashion POV.

For me, Phoebe is not in the discussion with The Row and all. The idea is not to wear basic at a high price but to subscribe to a vision, an aesthetic. Her stuff is insanely fashion. It can fit many different styles.

I think her work will evolve once she decides to hold a show because, there’s a difference in approach when clothes are worn to perform compared to photos on a studio.

The current set of "tasteful minimalists" would have a stroke if she dared to release a collection like this today, especially with this sort of "bad taste" styling.
View attachment 1319184
Source: AnOther Magazine

I think she is still quite similar in taste to her graduation show. The proportions are different but in essence, we see traces of her indulgence for bad taste. There’s always a tacky animal print, a mix of formal with utilitarian, still a sexiness…

The only thing that changes our appreciation of her work is that her taste has become mass taste. Our eyes are trained already.

And I think that she is a designer who evolve organically. She is not like Nicolas, always trying to push the limits of taste. She relies a lot on what she likes…

 

[FashioNarrating]

The novelty has clearly worn off and now we're about to see how the brand is actually doing. I agree with y'all saying XXL proportions don't look too fresh anymore, but I guess many people have grown used to them and are not ready to give up the loucheness. That being said, I think her take(s) on oversized clothing and contemporary fashion overall are still more interesting and idiosyncratic than those of her successors/competitors bcs she is and has been doing more than head-to-toe clean urban woman looks for over a decade now. In fact, the bigger half of her Céline tenure has not been exactly 'minimal' (despite being called that), with all the bold furs and leathers, major prints, wacky shoes, statement jewelry and a definite inclination to abandon the ultra-edited manner of her start at the brand. Which to me seems right for now as well - one can find a roomy monochromatic tunic shirt and nice wide slacks elsewhere for less money; where she certainly tops the Olsens or Peter Do is well-measured extravagance via, say, some retro-inspired-yet-modern-looking eyewear, a mohair wool scarf with a very illusive fur print, pieces made from acid-wash denim that for once actually look high-end or a bag that looks like a leather seat of a vintage car, so I'm glad she is offering such things.

 

[tricotineacetat]

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She does what she believes in and I strongly believe that the people who are going to Phoebe Philo are going for a fashion POV.

For me, Phoebe is not in the discussion with The Row and all. The idea is not to wear basic at a high price but to subscribe to a vision, an aesthetic. Her stuff is insanely fashion. It can fit many different styles.

I think her work will evolve once she decides to hold a show because, there’s a difference in approach when clothes are worn to perform compared to photos on a studio.

I think she is still quite similar in taste to her graduation show. The proportions are different but in essence, we see traces of her indulgence for bad taste. There’s always a tacky animal print, a mix of formal with utilitarian, still a sexiness…

The only thing that changes our appreciation of her work is that her taste has become mass taste. Our eyes are trained already.

And I think that she is a designer who evolve organically. She is not like Nicolas, always trying to push the limits of taste. She relies a lot on what she likes…

This conversation reminds me an awful lot of when Jil Sander evolved her style from what had essentially become a common sense of style that COS became synonymous of. You could see that both in her and Helmut around the time they sold to Patrizio Bertelli that they were embracing a direction that wasn’t as minimal as the fashion they were known for in the 1990ies. I would go so far as to say a lot from this brief period of time is what inspired Phoebe Philo at Celine, which is why I will never cut her more slack than that and forever hold Jil in higher regard to her.

What I find the most missing in Phoebe Philo’s present work (and this is again something I will hold her accountable for in comparison to Jil Sander) is that she hasn’t really developed a signature cut the way a design from Jil Sander or Hedi Slimane woukd unmistakably made it one of theirs'. The degree of oversize, with the sleeves of her jackets and tailoring obscuring the wearer's hands and the proportions were not *that* exaggerated during her Celine years and I will agree that the droopy look most of the shown looks are giving are indeed more reminiscent of Demna's Balenciaga.

The result is that the end result doesn’t look like she is much 'ahead' of her peers or giving the market something that hasn’t been there prior to her new namesake brand - I would go as far as to say that what Jil Sander brought to Uniqlo during her brief return was something that indeed had before gone missing with her and has since vanished since she left. The cuts, the fabrics, the details were 100% Jil Sander, I can tell by the styling of her garments that it’s by her much in the way a Hedi Slimane jacket will use a specific fabric, have a very exacting lapel shape and stiff canvassing, more akin to a strict uniform jacket than Milanese or Neapolitan tailoring). That particular 'soul' is something only a designer with a steadfast aesthetic has and may receive them the criticism of a lack of adaptability when the mood in fashion changes. But in turn, those designers really create a monolithic identity that I don’t think Phoebe Philo can yet claim for herself.

She makes perfectly fine, desirable clothes a certain type of woman likes to wear but to me, she will forever be a product of a time when designers were shaped into creative directors and not authors of their very own artistry.