Earlier this year, my fellow GQ writer Max Berlinger made a genius observation on Twitter, suggesting that designers are so interested in bourgeoisie style right now—culottes, nice blazers, tidy sweaters, and other good taste garments—because the middle class is “quickly disappearing.” Perversely, it’s now stability, rather than opulence, that is aspirational.
For a few years now, Hedi Slimane’s Celine has been the shiny gold clasp on the tasteful handbag that is the bourgeois fashion revolution, and I wondered, as I sat waiting for the video for his new men’s collection to start on Wednesday morning, what direction our fashion soothsayer Slimane might take things. Is being middle class and pouty in a perfect little black suit still the beacon of desire, or has the pandemic made even that dream—and pant-style—feel irrelevant?
Slimane delighted me by getting out of the
