Exclusive: See Celine’s New Men’s Campaign, Shot by Hedi Slimane in Berlin

Berlin’s infamous club SO36 has been a fixture for the city’s punk – and at one time new wave – scene since the 1970s and 80s when characters like David Bowie would frequent it. It’s the iconic venue’s connection to Bowie that led Hedi Slimane to shoot Celine’s Autumn/Winter 2019 menswear campaign in the same area of Berlin, and the accompanying film is premiered today exclusively on AnOthermag.com, just days before the house’s Spring/Summer 2020 show at Paris Men’s Fashion Week.

The collection – which was presented in January of this year on Paris’ Place de la Concorde, marking Celine’s first ever menswear-only show – also channelled decades and subcultures past, with slim tailoring, skinny ties, leather outerwear, animal prints, houndstooth and checks appearing, plus dark shades, brogues and brothel creepers recalling post-punks, Teddy boys, and mods. The Vancouver-based collective Crack Cloud soundtracked the show (which also saw a performance by 1970s no wave saxophonist James Chance), and the same punky song, Philosopher’s Calling, plays in the campaign.

Looking up at Berlin’s striking architecture – spot Steglitz’s Bierpinsel, for example – the campaign film’s spiralling shots trace the edges of buildings and are contrasted with photographs of the collection worn in cavernous warehouses and Modernist apartment blocks by the waifish boys who also walked the January runway. In brooding black and white – a choice that feels fitting for both the city and the clothes – Slimane’s vision of Berlin is elegant, mysterious, seductive and edgy, and his Celine man fits right in. Watch the campaign film below.