Three years into her run at Celine, Phoebe Philo has been mainstreamed. Her accessories have become the status symbol for the upwardly mobile woman—you can t go a block on the Upper East Side without bumping into a Luggage bag. For Resort, she s introduced two new shapes: the All Soft, a zipless, fold-over tote with a "baby" pouch inside, and the Edge, which as its name implies, has a more structured silhouette.
On the clothes front, this season wasn t so much a moment to introduce fresh ideas as it was to reassert house signatures. Leather continues to be of paramount importance. It was cut into variegated stripes for t-shirts and used on coats with horizontal panels that unzipped to create different silhouettes. Python featured too, most extravagantly as the patch pockets on a cashmere sweater. And scarf prints also made a reappearance, most interestingly on a pair of shorts and a shell top that were both veiled in a sheer white material.
If there s a piece that the Philo girl will have to have, it s the full, flaring trousers with deep stripes of contrasting color at the hem. The cut is great, for one, and two: Those in-the-know will instantly peg them as Celine. For a fashion insider, that produces the same kind of frisson as carrying a Luggage bag does for that Upper East Sider.
