Phoebe Philo - Life After Chloe - *Update* Creative Director for Celine

[emma_leigh]

I can't wait to see more work from her! Hopefully she will liven up the Celine image.

 

[kimair]

not again...from fashionweekdaily...

Merely hours after the news that Peter Som has cancelled his Fall 2009 runway show due to a split with Creative Design Studios, The Daily has learned that another highly-regarded designer has encountered trouble in paradise: Phoebe Philo. The designer, who earned star status during a 5-year run at Chloe, signed on to replace Ivana Omazic as creative director at Celine in September 2008. Philo is rumored to be clashing with LVMH management--namely the brand's new CEO, Marco Gobbetti, who moved from Givenchy to Celine in October alongside Philo.

Even though Celine's operations are based in Paris, LVMH set up a design studio for Philo in London, enabling her to spend time with her young children. (When Philo resigned from Chloe in 2006, she cited the desire to focus on her family.) Philo was set to unveil her first collection this March in Paris with a formal presentation, and her runway debut was slated for October 2009. Editorial exclusives--such as a feature in the March issue of Vogue--had already been booked as of December 2008. However, it now appears that the highly-anticipated March presentation is in question. "Phoebe's debut show will be in October, as has always been planned and we are as excited as ever for Celine's partnership with Phoebe Philo," said a spokesperson. One reliable industry source informed The Daily that a "team" is now working on the collection.

 

[TraiT]

^I'm not entirely upset with the news, as philo will still be designing for celine. But it's the wait that's kinda annoying?

Why create so much hype, and end up pushing the debut to a later date?

Does anyone else smelling something fishy?? What does the moving in of Celine's new CEO got to do with her designs and presentation?

Oh well...

 

[Pastry]

^ I just thought the WWD excerpt didn't have a valid point. It certainly didn't state that Phoebe's position at Celine is in any immediate danger.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Trouble in paradise doesn't have to come from the management end ... I think her dealings with Chloe made it pretty clear that "You need me, I don't need you."

I wonder if Celine price points are--assuming the designer relationship continues--going to remain much the same, or will they come to resemble Chloe's prices (which I often found ridiculous)?

It's too bad that politics seems to be so important in surviving as a fashion designer--and perhaps particularly as a female fashion designer. Perhaps Valentino will be become a model for how to survive with a minimum of creative talent

 

[Pastry]

^Is that what happened at Chloe, ta-ta? If that was Phoebe's argument, then I'd say she was being reckless, albeit gutsy.

And interesting point about the price points...there are some insanely-priced items; I agree. Although, I don't think management would allow that part of the production process to be lead by the creative director (too much).

Of course, some fabrics are finer than others; then there are embroideries, etc. But the fact is that many times the wholesale price is triple (not the traditional double) mark-up. If the company can get away with maximizing the profits like that, they will.

That said, none of the stores around me carry Celine. It is not a popular brand in Toronto. In fact, I have not seen it carried as much as even Pucci or Escada anywhere. My point is that I'm not familiar with the prices, but I'm assuming they're high.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Well, it is LVMH, so it's not a bargain ... but I find for designer some of the pieces to be reasonable and quite useful. They have a store here, and you can see some things on eluxury. I guess to the extent the designer is choosing expensive materials s/he is driving pricing ... but I never could see the rationale behind Chloe pricing. Except for what they could, they did ...

As far as the message, that is only my interpretation. She had her priorities, she wasn't afraid to walk away, and for that I admire her. Her kids will only be babies once, and clearly the fashion world is here for her to come back to. And it seems to me they did need her ... Chloe has floundered without her, yes?

 

[Pastry]

^definitely. Her accessories alone (and perhaps the sole reason) meant tons to the company. Not to mention they became iconic.

It's interesting to speculate ta-ta, isn't it?
And yes, babies are only babies once.

 

[kimair]

Back in the Game—Philo Returns

PARIS — Phoebe Philo, one of the biggest fashion stars of her generation, is getting ready for her comeback after three years on the sidelines.

And her first designs for Celine, to be unveiled in June for the pre-spring and cruise seasons, sound like they’re in tune with the times, underlining how much the industry has changed.

Fireworks are out: Realism is in. “[Celine] never stood for flashy fashion. It always felt like it was pretty sober, and that feels really relevant,” Philo said in her first interview since taking the creative helm of the brand, owned by luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. “It’s going to be more about a foundation for a wardrobe.”

For her debut pre-collections in particular, “I want it to be less about fashion and trend and to do something more about pieces and style,” she stressed.

Philo, whose hip-yet-girlish clothes and coveted bags catapulted Chloé into the designer big leagues, said she’s happy to be back at work after three years out of the spotlight and focused on her young family, Maya, 4, and Marlow, just 20 months.

And while she declined to show any sketches or clothes just yet, Philo discussed her approach at length.

“I’m designing the collection in capsules and there’s going to be a part of it based on iconic pieces,” she told WWD over a cappuccino amid the gilded splendor of the Ritz dining room here. In her inimitable mix of tomboy and chic elegance, Philo was wearing a “very small” men’s motorcycle jacket tossed over a loose, band-collared men’s shirt and a pair of cotton tuxedo pants from her Chloé days.

“I would like them to be investment pieces,” Philo said of her forthcoming collection, sounding serene and confident. “There’s going to be a big emphasis on trousers and jackets and blouses, and pieces that mix together. It’s also designed in such a way that it takes you through the day. It’s certainly how I dress, and it feels right.


“For a design point of view, it’s very considered, and when it’s merchandised and styled, I hope it’s accessible,” she said. “I want to make the experience of buying and wearing clothes an easy experience. There’s a soberness to it, and a classicism to it. I hope the pieces will be relevant for a while to come.”

For a woman who once experimented with more out-there personal style early in her career, up to and including gold teeth and long fingernails, Philo has certainly toned down, grown up — and maintained her arm’s length rapport with the media-saturated and hype-ridden fashion world.

“I don’t need to be around fashion to be inspired,” she said, describing her time-out from the industry as “lovely.”

“I didn’t really follow fashion. I don’t think I ever really have, though. I don’t buy fashion magazines and read them cover to cover,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s been a very calm time and very real. It was about some time for myself, which gives me a lot of strength now.”

Since accepting the creative director post last September, a sign that LVMH kingpin Bernard Arnault is serious about revving up his second-tier brands, Philo has been building her design team, which is based in London at her request.

“London is where I personally feel very happy, and it’s home,” she said. “It’s where my family is. Also, I think it’s really interesting, the idea of doing something with a French brand out of London — to try and break out of the old French house system.”

The shift, along with undisclosed changes in production, has created redundancies in Paris, and a reorganization that will see up to several dozen Celine employees from the design studio and atelier lose their jobs, according to sources.


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Celine declined to comment on the reorganization, but it is understood efforts will be made to place affected employees elsewhere within the luxury group, which includes such brands as Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Givenchy and Emilio Pucci.

Meanwhile, Philo confirmed she has already traveled to Tokyo with members of her team on a fact-finding mission: primarily to look at “architecture and graphic concepts” and reacquaint herself with a market she had not visited for eight years. “I was more interested in how fashion stood in stores,” she said. “Plus the street style in Japan is great, just looking at people.”

The designer, who will have creative purview over store design and advertising, said she has yet to choose her collaborators for boutiques or advertising. Yet she spoke freely about what attracted her to the Celine project.

Philo counts a vintage Celine skirt and blouse in her wardrobe, and from what she’s seen of other clothes in the archive, “they’re very practical, beautiful, accessible pieces.

“There’s nothing historical that needs to be reinvented. It feels like a blank slate,” she said of a house founded in 1945 by Celine Vipiana and based initially on shoes and, later, chic sportswear. “It feels like it can be quite pure and fresh and talking about now, not harking back to an era that was iconic….It’s a brand that’s very much for women, designed by a woman. That didn’t feel forced.”

A graduate of London’s Central Saint Martins fashion school, Philo was classmates with Stella McCartney and worked with her when McCartney launched her own collection after graduation. Philo followed McCartney to Chloé in 1997 and took the top job in 2001 when McCartney left to set up her own fashion house in a joint venture with Gucci Group.

With her good looks and striking personal style, Philo succeeded in accelerating Chloé’s rejuvenation and catapulting it into the high-margin leather goods business. But she resigned for personal reasons in 2006, mainly to spend more time with her children and her husband, art dealer Max Wigram.
More on Subject

• Celine RTW Spring 2009
• Celine Taps Phoebe Philo

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In addition to doing some under-the-radar consulting for Gap Europe, Philo is said to have put out feelers to fashion’s biggest players — including Gucci Group and Chloé parent Compagnie Financière Richemont — about launching a signature fashion house, in addition to interviewing for a range of high-profile jobs, including Valentino, sources said.

Philo arrived at Celine in tandem with a new chief executive officer, Marco Gobbetti, who had orchestrated a turnaround at Givenchy. Together, they will be faced with rejuvenating a brand that has seen a revolving door of designers in recent years, and mixed results.

Philo succeeded Ivana Omazic, a designer tapped from Prada Group in 2005 to steer Celine into woman-friendly territory. Omazic herself succeeded ex-Burberry designer Roberto Menichetti, who had a lackluster one-year collaboration at Celine.

The brand has yet to reclaim the buzz it enjoyed when Michael Kors was at the design helm, from 1997 to 2004. Omazic exited the company last October, but her team remained in place to design the fall-winter collection, which will not be put on the runway.

In an interview, Gobbetti described 2009 as a “transition year” at Celine, citing high interest — and expectation — in Philo’s designs.

While far less prominent than Louis Vuitton, Dior or Fendi, considered “star brands” in Arnault’s luxury parlance, Celine is a sizable business, with a retail network of some 130 stores, concentrated in Asia, which represents about half the business. Market sources have estimated Celine’s volume at around 200 million euros, or about $290 million at current exchange rates.

The business is believed to be close to break-even.

Gobbetti said the retail network would remain “the backbone of our distribution,” while spying plenty of upside potential with wholesale, which he described as “underdeveloped,” particularly in the U.S. Philo said she deliberately decided to sit out the Paris runway shows next month, as a way to “give the brand a bit of a break” and not succumb to fashion’s “fast and furious” pace.

“I prefer to take control of the situation rather than letting the situation take control of us,” she said.

Yet her eagerness is plain, and she relishes the chance to make her new fashion statement on the runway come October.

“I feel very strongly that we’ve got something very interesting to show,” she said. “I personally feel quite ambitious and excited about getting back into work and getting started.”

wwd/ february 9, 2009

 

[elle_gb]

I'm dying to see her celine collection. Really can't wait, look what she'd done with Chloe just make me feel so excited.

 

[Pastry]

Thank god this is good news..when I saw that the thread is updated, my heart sank.

Phew!

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ I must say, that sounds great ... thanks for posting, kimair. I'll be quite interested to see what she does ...

 

[albertli1984]

So I have to know

This 09 Fall/Winter designed by a team!?

 

[CrEateuR]

Is she still being featured in Vogue? ANyone knows which edition i it?

 

[albertli1984]

Give me Phobe, pls.

 

[MissMagAddict]

FAST-FORWARD PHOEBE
US Vogue October 2009


source | scanned by MMA

 

[Thefrenchy]

T Style Magazine - Spring 2010
"Phoebe Philo's Third Act"
Ph: Solve Sundsbo

NYTIMES.COM

It wasn’t the best way to start the day. “When I was leaving the house this morning, my husband saw what I was wearing and said, ‘What do you think you’re doing, you complete freak?’ ” recalls Phoebe Philo with a laugh. “He said that skinny jeans, a sweatshirt, a Crombie coat and loafers are the uniform of the British National Party. And he has a point.”

As that scene took place in the couple’s North London home, a little trans-Atlantic translation may be helpful. First, the phrase “you complete freak” is considered a term of endearment on this side of the Atlantic. Second, the British National Party is a bunch of right-wing extremists and suspected racists, many of whom do indeed sport that uniform. A lesser woman might have changed. Not Philo.

Let’s look more closely at what she’s wearing, shall we? Her jeans are cut just so in a delicate shade of pale blue. The fine cashmere sweatshirt is in a similarly subtle gray. Then there’s the camel cashmere Crombie. “It’s cut very specifically like a double-breasted coat, but worn open like a single-breasted coat,” she explains. “The cut of the shoulder and sleeves is twisted at the front, so you get this feeling that it’s sitting on your shoulders.” As for her shoes, they’re a pair of Church’s men’s brogues several sizes too big, but none of the women’s brogues looked right.

Shoes apart, everything comes from the first collection that Philo, 36, designed as creative director of Céline: a collection that the fashion world was very, very eager to see. A designer’s debut at a new label is always exciting, especially if it is backed by a luxury colossus, as Céline is by LVMH. But this particular designer is the fashion superstar who made Chloé one of the hottest labels of the early 2000s. The willowy look of those leggy girls who spent much of the last decade in floaty minis with clunky shoes and even clunkier bags was Philo’s doing. Then she made herself — and her clothes — seem even more alluring by dropping out of fashion for three years to focus on her family, ending her self-imposed exile with a comeback at Céline.

“There’s this incredible mystique about Phoebe,” says Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor of The Times of London. “She’s this cool London girl who always did the right thing at the right time at Chloé and walked away from it at the absolute height. Everyone talked about her first Céline show as if it was the second coming. The atmosphere in that room was electric. We were all waiting to see what she would do.”

She didn’t disappoint. From the crisply chic safari jackets and dresses to the starched hem of a long white shirt peeping out from beneath a natty A-line skirt, Philo’s spring collection for Céline was a triumph. Impeccably cut and refreshingly unfussy, it combined sleek shapes with a restrained palette of white, black, camel, blue, nude and khaki. There were echoes of Céline’s heritage as an accessories house in the leather T-shirts and trims; the flatteringly fluid silhouette that her Chloé fans loved was there in the high-waisted, wide-legged pants.

It was also a breath of fresh air at a time when fashion needed a respite from recession and the glamazon Paris Vogue look of black leather and big shoulders that had swamped the runways in recent seasons.

“It feels like a bit of calmness and cleanliness are what’s needed in fashion now,” says Philo, sitting in her London studio, beside a gleaming white Don Brown sculpture of his nearly naked wife, Yoko, and teetering piles of art books with colorful Post-it notes peeping out from the pages. “What we’re doing at Céline is crisper and more structured than at Chloé, but that’s very much about where my taste is now. We’ve kept everything quite clean and quite fluid, with a very simple color card. I’m very much into staple pieces, but with a twist — something that feels of the moment.”

Tall and boyishly skinny, Philo has always been her best model. She is very pretty but subtly so, with fine cheekbones, captivatingly large eyes and fine honey brown hair tied back in a tiny knot. Her voice is deceptively girlish for someone who is so self-assured with, as she puts it, “a certain steeliness.” The giveaway is her laugh, which rolls around the room loudly and saucily, often at her own expense. “The thing about Phoebe is that she’s so clever, so creative, so lovely and all of that, but she’s also really fun,” says the jewelry designer Solange Azagury-Partridge, who is godmother to Philo’s son. “She’s got a great sense of humor and a real potty mouth.”

Philo was born in Paris to British parents, who moved back to Britain before she was 2. She was brought up in Harrow, on the outskirts of London, and still speaks with a suburban twang. Her father is a property manager. “He’s absolutely not into fashion at all, God bless him,” she says. “My dad is totally of the school that you need one pair of shoes, one pair of pants, one of everything and you only buy another one when it falls apart.” Her mother is different. “She’s always had her own sense of style. She worked as a graphic designer and later as an art dealer, and when she had a bit of money she’d go out and buy something. I remember her taking me to Yves Saint Laurent, and she bought this fabulous electric blue mac.” Philo recalled her mother coming to parents’ meetings at her school in Harrow, dressed glamorously in a YSL coat and jeans even in the pouring rain. “I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I was just like — arrrgh! Can’t bear this happening to me.”

When Philo was 10, she customized her school leotard to look like Madonna’s. A few years later, her parents bought her a sewing machine, and she started making her own clothes. After high school, she studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins College in London, where she was drawn to mid-1990s minimalists like Helmut Lang and Jil Sander. (You can spot echoes of their work in her Céline collection, which is edgier than Sander’s but not as edgy as Lang’s.) “I was experimental at college, but in my own funny little way,” she recalls. “I’ve always been attracted to the wilder things, but not when it comes to my own work. I’ve always had a sense that if I can’t wear it, what’s the point?”

After graduating, she hung out in London for a few months, helping her Saint Martins chum Stella McCartney with her first collection. “It’s all a bit of a blur,” Philo says. “Though I do remember being really skint, things like the electricity being cut off because I couldn’t pay the bill.” When McCartney was made creative director of Chloé in Paris, taking over from Karl Lagerfeld (who wasn’t pleased to be succeeded by someone a few years out of fashion school), she asked Philo to go with her. “We were very young and it was fun, but there was a lot of work to be done,” she recalls. “There was lots of pressure, though for sure that was more on Stella.”

When McCartney left Chloé to create her own label in 2001, Philo stayed on as creative director. The fashion press has been obsessed with their relationship ever since. Are they still friends? Are they even speaking?

The most popular answer to both questions is no, supposedly because McCartney was disappointed when Philo didn’t follow her. Philo won’t discuss it, but it must be irritating to find yourself trapped in fashion’s version of a Beatles soap opera, even if you are cast as supercool John (or maybe the dreamy dark horse George) against McCartney as her dad.

It was the year before she took over at Chloé that Philo fell in love with the London art dealer Max Wigram, whom she married. Spending weekdays in Paris and weekends in London just about worked until she had their first child, a daughter, Maya, now 5. “We were like this little nomadic tribe,” she recalls. “I had this bag that just followed us everywhere. Nappies. Bottles. Sleeping on the Eurostar. Stuck in the tunnel for six hours with a 6-month-old baby. It was madness. Max came to Paris as often as he could, but he had a business in London. It wasn’t sustainable.”

 

[Thefrenchy]

continued...

Azagury-Partridge was doing the same commute from London to Paris, where she was then creative director of Boucheron. “Thinking about it now, I feel queasy,” she says with a groan. “That sort of life sounds very glamorous and it was great on many levels, but it takes a toll physically and emotionally. You’re always rushing, and always tired.” Lisa Armstrong, who has two older daughters, remembers seeing Philo at their local Starbucks in London during that time. “I bumped into her with the baby. Phoebe looked very thin and very pale, just exhausted. She said, ‘How do you cope with working and motherhood?’ Not long after that, she left Chloé.”

What did she do? “For the first year I just vegged out, and the weeks just kind of went past without me having to do anything. I remember just loving the fact that I didn’t need to be anywhere at any particular time. I got back to basics. I was interested in things like my husband, my family and my friends. We did lots of little trips that I’d book three days before, which is something I’d never been able to do. I really stepped out of fashion. I didn’t look at the collections, didn’t read magazines, didn’t buy much. I wore my pajamas a lot, if you want to know the truth, and tracksuits. Basically I looked like a bit of a slob. The second year I had my son, Marlowe, and it was wonderful to have that experience without working. I had him, and then this came up.”

“This” — Céline — was founded in 1945 by Céline Vipiana to make bespoke children’s shoes. During the 1960s, Vipiana diversified into women’s ready-to-wear and dressed those very smart, slightly starchy, middle-aged Parisiennes whom you still spot in posh arrondissements like the Seventh and 16th. Yet Céline stayed in the style boondocks except for the six years when Michael Kors revved it up. (Remember Rene Russo’s wardrobe in “The Thomas Crown Affair”?) The brand survived, thanks to LVMH’s financial muscle, albeit as the fashion equivalent of a “still big in Asia” dinosaur.

When LVMH came calling, Philo felt ready to return to fashion. “It was getting to feel a bit skanky,” she says, laughing. “It was good to take a break, but I love working, I love being part of a team, and I love fashion. I even love the structure, schedules and crazy deadlines. It was time for me to get motivated again and to get back into something.” She toyed with introducing her own label, but Céline really appealed; even its low profile seemed like a plus. “It felt like a clean slate,” she says. “But it also felt interesting because Céline was founded by a woman, and what it had stood for historically was clothes for women by women. And it has this sense of belonging to Paris with its elegance, decadence and those saucy, steamy ‘Belle de Jour’ women that I find really seductive. I think we all secretly fancy a bit of that.”

But Philo was willing to work only on her own terms, which meant being based in London and having carte blanche to reinvent the brand with her own team. “Phoebe knows exactly what she wants and sticks to it,” says Katy Baggott, who negotiated the Céline deal for her as her agent. “She’s great to work with because she’s very clear, very trusting and there’s no wavering.”

Philo started work at Céline in the middle of 2008 and devoted the first year to rebuilding the business by opening a design studio in a derelict Georgian town house on Cavendish Square in London, hiring a new design team (some of whom came from Chloé) and rethinking the company’s branding, marketing and stores. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone so precise and detailed as Phoebe,” said Peter Miles, the New York-based graphic designer who developed Céline’s new brand identity. “She sees things microscopically. ‘Can you just make the logo two millimeters shorter?’ ‘Can you move it down there by three millimeters?’ I had to change things by the smallest margins on boxes, bags, ads, business cards, everything, but always for good reason.”

By the time the first clothes surfaced last summer — as the pre-collection for this spring — Philo was settled in Cavendish Square with a manageable schedule. She still travels to Paris, but only for a couple of days a month, when she camps at the Ritz.

“It makes a huge difference being based in London,” she says happily. “The nanny arrives at our house in the morning. I drop my daughter at school and drive to work. Then it’s leave work, drive home, and the kids are there. There’s a bit of madness, then I put them to bed, have supper and a bit of a catch-up with my husband and go to sleep.”

They live very quietly. Philo cherishes her privacy and, unlike the media-savvy McCartney, is never followed by paparazzi on the school run or slipping out of London restaurants with Gwyneth or Madonna. “I’m completely anonymous, and I can’t imagine anything worse than losing that,” she says.

“I feel very protective of my life outside of my work. I don’t really go to things in the industry, although I do go to things in the art world because of Max. The people I generally see know me really well and like me for who I am. I know that sounds really bleh, but it’s true.” She and Wigram often spend weekends with the children at their parents’ country homes, where she can indulge her passion for horse riding. “Phoebe’s priorities are totally right,” Azagury-Partridge says. “Her life is very much about family, her husband and children and their extended families. Being so self-contained really helps her to get on with the job, because everything else just bounces off.”

Just as well, given that Philo now has to pull off a fall collection that’s at least as hot as her spring one. “It’ll be a continuation,” she says. “There’ll be great fabrics, and great cuts. Those are the things that always work and give women the investment pieces that seem relevant again now. This coat, for example, I imagine I’ll still be wearing it in 10 years’ time. I can’t see why I won’t.” Pajamas and tracksuits? “Ha! Haven’t quite squeezed those in yet.”

- NYTIMES.COM

 

[Thefrenchy]

What LVMH Did to Score Phoebe Philo, and What Philo Is Doing In Turn for Celine

>> After Michael Kors left Celine in 2004, the brand floundered. To rectify the situation, Pierre-Yves Roussel, chief executive of LVMH's fashion division, traveled to London every other week for nearly a year to persuade Phoebe Philo to come on board at the brand. The company also agreed to build her a design studio in London, where she lives with her young family. Eighteen months ago, Philo signed on.

For a fresh start, LVMH destroyed all of the inventory left in stores before Philo's first collection. All but one Celine store was closed in the United States, ties to less exclusive retailers like Bloomingdale's and Net-a-Porter were cut, the accent was restored to the brand's name, and bag production is no longer outsourced to China — each in a bid to elevate the brand.
Celine prices have increased since Philo started designing for the label, and even though department stores usually get exclusives on new brands, Celine got Bergdorf and Barneys to share the rights to Philo's debut Spring 2010 collection in the New York market. The goal, according to Philo, is to establish a high-end image before ultimately paving the way into more affordable offerings: "I felt it was necessary to establish quality to the brand. Now that we are establishing that and the top of the pyramid is in place, we can open it out."

- FASHIONOLOGIE.COM

 

[lucy92]

the frenchy, the "story" from fashionologie is just a bad re-write of an in depth story that was in the wall street journal this week. i suggest you check that out instead.