CELINE: Hedi Slimane’s Memories Revived through Celine’s Beauty

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“This Haute Parfumerie collection is perhaps the most intimate and personal part of my entire creative project at Celine.”
— Hedi Slimane​

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Basic Information

• Brand name: CELINE. Formerly written Céline; Hedi Slimane removed the accent in 2018, changing it to the current spelling​
• Founded: 1945
• Perfume line launched: 2019 (Celine Haute Parfumerie)
• Founder of the perfume line: Hedi Slimane, Celine’s Artistic, Creative & Image Director from 2018 to 2024​
• Brand founders: Céline Vipiana (1915–1997) and her husband Richard​
• Group: LVMH (since 1996)​
• Official website: https://www.celine.com

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The Founders and the Brand’s Origins

The House’s Beginnings: Céline Vipiana and the Birth of CELINE

To discuss Celine’s perfumes, we first need to trace the house’s history.

Paris, 1945, just after the end of World War II. Céline Vipiana and her husband Richard opened a boutique at 52 Rue Malte. Their initial business was made-to-order children’s shoes. Marked by a red elephant logo drawn by illustrator Raymond Peynet, the small shop quickly earned a reputation among affluent Parisians for its fine shoemaking.

In 1960, the brand reached a major turning point. Repositioning itself from children’s shoes to ready-to-wear for adult women, it began offering artisanal leather goods, including handbags, loafers, and gloves. Céline Vipiana’s philosophy was understated luxury. Clean lines, fine materials, and a rigorous commitment to functionality captured the hearts of modern, independent women.

In 1964, the brand’s first fragrance, Vent Fou, was born. Featuring notes of galbanum, jasmine, and rose, the perfume was well received, but Celine then went for a long period without developing a fragrance line. Vent Fou would ultimately remain Celine’s “only” fragrance for at least fifty-five years.

Another turning point in Vipiana’s life came in 1973. After a minor traffic accident near the Place de l’Étoile in Paris, she noticed a motif resembling interlocking versions of her initial C in the chain links surrounding the Arc de Triomphe. This chance discovery led to the Triomphe logo. Still an emblem of the house today, it would later be engraved on the perfume-bottle caps as well.

Bernard Arnault acquired a stake in Celine in 1987, and the brand was formally integrated into the LVMH group in 1996. The acquisition price was 2.7 billion francs, approximately $540 million. Vipiana herself retired in 1988 and died in 1997 in her early eighties. World-renowned designers, including Michael Kors and Phoebe Philo, subsequently served as creative directors as the house continued to develop.​

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Hedi Slimane: A Couturier Enters the World of Scent

Childhood and Formative Years

Hedi Slimane was born in Paris’s 19th arrondissement on July 5, 1968. His father was an accountant from Tunisia and his mother a seamstress from Italy. With two uncles who were also tailors, he grew up surrounded by needles and fabric.​

At eleven, he discovered photography, acquired his first camera, and learned black-and-white darkroom processing. This became the starting point of the photographic work that would enrich his later career. Around sixteen, unable to find ready-made clothes that suited his slim frame, Slimane began making his own garments on his mother’s sewing machine. He received no formal fashion education. He studied art history at the École du Louvre and also worked as an apprentice tailor at a menswear design house.

A Breakthrough in Fashion

From 1992 to 1995, he worked under fashion consultant Jean-Jacques Picart on Louis Vuitton’s centennial project. Through this connection, he met Yves Saint Laurent co-founder Pierre Bergé and was appointed director of Yves Saint Laurent’s men’s ready-to-wear in 1996.​

From 2000 to 2007, as creative director of Dior Homme, he revolutionized menswear. His ultra-slim silhouettes and androgynous aesthetics transformed fashion around the world. In 2004, an important connection with scent emerged: Slimane worked with perfumers on three fragrances for Maison Christian Dior’s private perfume collection. A pioneering endeavor at the time, it was his first substantial experience directing perfume creation.

“In 2004, when I began creating one of the first private perfume collections at Dior, I started researching the historical background of eau de cologne.”
— Hedi Slimane​

From 2012 to 2016, he served as creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, also stirring controversy by renaming the brand Saint Laurent. In February 2018, he became Celine’s Artistic, Creative & Image Director.​

Arriving at Celine and Removing the Accent

One of Slimane’s first acts on joining Celine was to remove the accent from the brand logo, changing é to e. In September 2018, the entire history of posts on Celine’s Instagram was deleted, and a new logo was unveiled.​

“The new logo is directly inspired by the original historical version that existed in the 1960s. The modernist typography dates from the 1930s. The omission of the accent allows for simpler and more balanced proportions.”
— Official CELINE announcement

Introducing menswear, redesigning boutiques, and moving into couture, Slimane rapidly transformed Celine into “his” house. A perfume line had been part of this vision from its earliest stages.​

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The Birth of Haute Parfumerie: The Couturier-Parfumeur Tradition

From Conception to Announcement

In August 2019, Celine announced its Haute Parfumerie collection. Nine perfumes went on sale in late October that year, and the remaining two, Bois Dormant and Rimbaud, were added in 2020. They were the house’s first fragrances in fifty-five years, since Vent Fou in 1964.

For Slimane, perfume was an inseparable part of the fashion project.

“For Celine, fragrance is an entirely new chapter. This somewhat old-fashioned notion of ‘Haute Parfumerie’ is a return to a tradition I have always loved, the quintessence of French taste: olfactory compositions of the highest quality, as haute couture is to fashion.”
— Hedi Slimane​

“I could not imagine conceiving a fashion project without an olfactory definition and atmospheric landscapes. It helped define the very idea of a couture house, and was necessary to define my characters, women and men, and to glimpse their psychology and temperament.”
— Hedi Slimane

Why introduce eleven perfumes at once rather than a single signature fragrance? Slimane answered this question as follows.

“I felt it was important to establish the foundations of a clear, meaningful olfactory universe and semantics. It was also about showing every facet of my characters and building a multifaceted collection of contrasts.”
— Hedi Slimane​

The Olfactory Journal

The starting point for Celine Haute Parfumerie is a private record Slimane calls his olfactory journal. This personal diary, which he also uses as inspiration for his fashion collections, records places, moments, and people, the emotional memories of his life, in scent.

Each fragrance grew out of a specific page in this journal. Parisian street corners, teenage memories, nights with rock stars, and Californian sunshine are all crystallized through the sense of smell.

“Each perfume has its personality, its uniqueness, its own trail and patina, but this Celine Haute Parfumerie project also involves defining my style and an olfactory tone that runs across it. Finding a recognizable, shared way of writing is absolutely fundamental.”
— Hedi Slimane​

Slimane developed each perfume through dialogue with three perfumers. Yet he shared his creative vision with them in the language of images rather than the technical language of perfumery, such as classifications of notes and accords. This followed the tradition of the couturier parfumeur, a fashion designer weaving scent through a personal aesthetic vision.

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The Brand’s Commitments

A Powdery Signature

A powdery signature note runs through every fragrance in Celine Haute Parfumerie. An olfactory fingerprint Slimane has loved since his Dior years, it lends unity to the entire collection.​

“Like a translucent veil laid on the skin, this powdery filter gives each perfume an enveloping patina and the French elegance befitting a couture trail.”
— Official Celine statement

Over this powdery base are used classical natural materials such as iris, rose, tree moss, and chypre accords, recalling the golden age of French perfumery in the 1960s and 1970s. It is intriguing that Slimane deliberately chooses long compositions, moving against the trend toward short, simple modern fragrances.

Masculin-Féminin: Beyond Gender

Every fragrance is unisex, with no traditional division into men’s and women’s scents. Slimane’s pursuit of androgyny throughout at least twenty years in fashion and photography carries directly into the world of fragrance.

Bottle Design

Slimane also designs the flacons himself. The rectangular solid-glass bottles are made by artisan glassblowers in accordance with French glassmaking traditions.

• Sharp fluting, or vertical grooves, on both sides​
• A faceted black-lacquered cap​
• “Concise, taut lines, touches of black lacquer, transparent glass, and amber-gold reflections,” inheriting late-seventeenth-century classicism while embodying Art Deco modernity​
• The top of the cap is engraved with the Triomphe emblem chosen by founder Vipiana in 1973​

The outer box is dressed in grain de poudre, paper with a powdery granular texture, and embossed to reproduce seventeenth-century moldings, the decorative reliefs found on walls. The design was inspired by the wood paneling of the Hôtel Colbert de Torcy at 16 Rue Vivienne in Paris, home to Celine’s ateliers.​

The Haute Parfumerie Boutique

In November 2019, Celine opened its first dedicated Haute Parfumerie boutique at 390 Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Naturally designed by Slimane, the Art Deco-style space is composed of Grand Antique marble, a rare black marble with white veining, illuminated alabaster, and countless mirrors. At its center is a mirrored display called the Amphitheater, in which the flacons are reflected endlessly. In December 2022, the premises were expanded to include leather goods and jewelry, growing into a 137-square-meter space.

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The Perfume Lineup

Celine Haute Parfumerie is loosely organized into DAY and EVENING collections, although the house explicitly states that any fragrance can be worn at any time of day or night. The following overview explores the structure of its representative creations.​

DAY Collection

Parade — Bergamot, neroli, vetiver, musk, and oakmoss. A brilliant citrus fragrance opening the collection, evoking the parade of rock stars Slimane has dressed.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés — Neroli, petitgrain, white orris butter, heliotrope, and vanilla. Named after the emblematic neighborhood on Paris’s Left Bank, it is a fresh, powdery vanilla floral.​

Cologne Française — Neroli, fig tree, white orris butter, tree moss, and musk. Having studied the history of eau de cologne, Slimane deliberately subverts it in a warm, dappled direction, bringing feminine softness and masculine structure together.

Dans Paris — Bergamot, coriander seed, a laurel-blossom accord, musk, and vanilla. A light vanilla with an intimate atmosphere, as though one were “within” Paris.​

La Peau Nue — Bergamot, rose absolute, white orris butter, rice powder, and vetiver. As its name, “bare skin,” suggests, it is distinguished by a baby-powder softness and intimacy.​

Eau de Californie — Palo santo, white orris, patchouli, and tree moss. The collection’s only fragrance inspired by somewhere other than Paris, it pays tribute to Los Angeles, where Slimane spent at least a decade, and to Californian youth culture. It has woody, smoky, and creamy facets.​

Rimbaud (added in 2020) — Lavender, neroli, orris butter, a wheat accord, musk, and vanilla. A fragrance named after the French poet Arthur Rimbaud.​

“At fourteen, after school, I would lie on the grass with friends and read Rimbaud’s ‘The Sleeper in the Valley’ (Le Dormeur du Val) aloud. […] I always carried that photograph of him with me, treasuring it; it seemed an image of eternal youth. I had always wanted to create a perfume evoking utopia, a perfume capturing the very essence of youth.”
— Hedi Slimane

Bois Dormant (added in 2020) — Bergamot, juniper, cedar, vetiver, and orris butter. Its name means “sleeping woods” and draws on memories of searching London’s Savile Row for vintage double-breasted flannel suits at nineteen. Interweaving British refinement with inspiration from the warm sound of vinyl records, it has also been described as Black Tie’s “daytime twin.”​

Zouzou (added in 2024) — Benzoin, tonka beans, patchouli, labdanum, vanillin, and musk. The twelfth creation pays homage to the sylph-like young women of 1960s films and novels. Zouzou is an affectionate nickname for a young woman with short hair.​

“I wanted to create a perfume about utopian adolescence. I wanted to capture the ideal of eternal youth: the impertinence of the young novelist Françoise Sagan, the ingenue boyishness of Jean Seberg filmed by Jean-Luc Godard, and the magnificent heroines of the Velvet Underground.”
— Hedi Slimane​

Un Été Français (added in 2025) — Coconut, neroli, petitgrain, powdery vanilla, and gorse. The thirteenth creation is considered to be Slimane’s final work for Celine. Encapsulating memories of summer holidays in Saint-Tropez in southern France, it expresses the freedom and lightness of the Nouvelle Vague generation.

EVENING Collection

Black Tie — Vanilla, cedar, tree moss, and orris. Androgynous, sharp, and dark, it seems to embody Slimane’s style itself.

“A precise olfactory interpretation of my fashion style. A sharp, dark composition, entirely androgynous.”
— Hedi Slimane​

Its treatment of vanilla deserves particular attention. Distinct from the excessively sweet synthetic vanillas of recent years, its delicate, natural vanilla is described as “dense and crisp, like grain de poudre or lacquered satin.”​

Reptile — Black pepper, leather, tree moss, and musk. A glittering kaleidoscope of the rock stars Slimane has photographed and dressed for the stage for at least twenty-five years. Rather than the hard leather its name might suggest, it unfolds like soft suede and a cloud of powdery musk, embodying Celine’s characteristic elegance.

Nightclubbing — Galbanum, white orris butter, patchouli, tree moss, vanilla, and musk. Its name also recalls Grace Jones’s album of the same title, while the fragrance is inspired by memories of nights at the legendary Parisian clubs Le Palace and Les Bains Douches.

“Between the smell of crimson velvet seats and the sensuality of vanilla-scented napes, a musky, addictive patina underlies top notes of galbanum with nicotine accents, immersing us in an electric atmosphere: a perfume for night birds who feed on Parisian nights in the era of Le Palace and Les Bains Douches.”
— Official Celine statement

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Incidentally…

• Beyond perfumery: Slimane expanded beyond perfumes into a candle collection, perfumed oils, and body care. For the candle collection, dedicated wax artisans also train in perfumery, going so far as to use six or seven different waxes and oils, as well as different wick sizes for each scent. There are also candle-exclusive fragrances, including Palimpsest and Grands Lys.​
• Objects from Maison Celine: The Haute Parfumerie boutique also offers objects for everyday rituals, such as playing cards, dominoes, gold-colored dice, and mustache combs, wrapped in monogrammed leather. For Slimane, grooming and leisure accessories “complemented the fundamental moments of life.”
• The fragrance-licensing era, 2000–2011: Before Slimane, Celine’s fragrances were licensed to Inter Parfums, which released scents including Celine Pour Femme (2001) and Fever (2005). These belonged to a different lineage from Slimane’s Haute Parfumerie, however, with little continuity with the current line.
• Slimane’s departure and a new era: Slimane left Celine in October 2024, and Michael Rider became its new creative director in January 2025. Rider had previously spent ten years as Celine’s design director under Phoebe Philo before becoming creative director of Polo Ralph Lauren and subsequently “returning” to the house.

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