Where the skinny jeans are

First up was Iggy Pop, croaking in his signature style, prancing shirtless and writhing and thrashing on the ground. Next came The Strokes, whose set of hits from their turn-of-the-century albums like “Is This It” and “Room on Fire” led so many revelers to rush the stage that the performance was forced to end early. Interpol then played briefly. The festivities ran so late — well past 1 a.m. — that the show’s final act, a DJ set by The Kills, didn’t happen at all.

Models present looks at Celine’s fall 2023 women’s wear fashion show at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 2022. (Michael Tyrone Delaney/The New York Times)

The performers were all booked by Celine, the French label owned by the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy luxury goods group, and now overseen by top designer Hedi Slimane. For nearly three decades, Slimane’s work — at Dior Homme, Saint Laurent and Celine — has had a symbiotic relationship with music, particularly rock ‘n’ roll. That relationship was not only on display during the concert but also the runway show that preceded it, which presented Celine’s fall 2023 womenswear collection.

Set to a loop of “Hello Operator” by The White Stripes, the show featured pin-thin models parading in skinny jeans tucked into leather boots (some fringed), slinky tops, scarves tied loosely around their necks, suit vests, military-inspired jackets and a series of glamorous dresses. Some of the dresses were languorously cut; others were short, frisky and worn beneath shearling coats.

Brie Larson attends Celine’s fall 2023 women’s wear fashion show at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 2022. (Michael Tyrone Delaney/The New York Times)

Seats on the theater’s main floor and in its upper mezzanine were filled with celebrities (Doja Cat, Wiz Khalifa, Brie Larson, Miles Teller, Dustin Hoffman, Priscilla Presley, Paris Hilton), stylists, fashion editors and hundreds of other people that Celine described as “friends of the house.” Attendees wore lanky suits, glittering dresses, bodysuits and enough motorcycle jackets that a reporter was surprised not to see a single motorcycle parked out front.

“I think music is his muse,” Kim Gordon, singer and bassist of the band Sonic Youth, said of Slimane, whom she first met at the Cannes Film Festival. Gordon, who is now a visual artist, was later photographed by Slimane when he helmed Saint Laurent as part of a campaign for the brand. “I mean, he really loves skinny rock dudes,” she added.

The rapper Kid Cudi attends Celine’s fall 2023 women’s wear fashion show at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 2022. (Michael Tyrone Delaney/The New York Times)

“I’d say it’s giving indie sleaze,” stylist Mel Ottenberg said of the fashion show, using a term popularized by trend forecaster Mandy Lee to describe a time in the early 2000s when “basics” meant clothes from American Apparel, and when Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were known more for partying at the Jane Hotel than for running The Row. “While I was a little horrified by the skintight pants, I trust him,” Ottenberg, the editor-in-chief of Interview magazine, added of Slimane. “If he’s saying they’re coming back, I believe him.”

Lizzy Goodman, a writer and contributor to The New York Times whose book chronicling New York’s 2000s indie rock scene, “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” was the basis for a recent documentary, said that Slimane’s relationship with the fashion of that era “is really foundational.” The day of the Celine show, the brand distributed a slim black book to the press titled “Age of Indieness,” which contained a conversation between Goodman and Slimane about the way fashion, music and subcultures all shape the image of a particular moment in time.

Models present looks at Celine’s fall 2023 women’s wear fashion show at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 2022. (Michael Tyrone Delaney/The New York Times)

“What pulls him, I think, to rock ‘n’ roll over and over again is the idea of an eternal aliveness that is always ending as it’s beginning,” Goodman added of Slimane, who rarely gives interviews and declined to comment for this article.

But music was not the collection’s only perceptible influence. Some guests said the clothes on the runway were clearly inspired by Los Angeles, the city in which they were shown, where Slimane previously lived and worked for several years.

“Look, there’s the cool French girl thing, and obviously Hedi gets that and does that,” model Cindy Crawford said. “But he knows the essence of what makes the cool LA girl.”

The punk band the Linda Lindas attends Celine’s fall 2023 women’s wear fashion show at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 2022. (Michael Tyrone Delaney/The New York Times)

Crawford, who wore a sparkly T-shirt dress, was there in part to cheer on her daughter, Kaia Gerber, who walked in the show. “He knows the essence of a place,” Crawford added of Slimane. “When I walked up, everyone was smoking! It was like Paris in LA.”

Ottenberg, the Interview editor, said that, “Hedi is always really, really, LA.” But the red-carpet-worthy dresses that closed the show, “felt particularly LA,” he added. “There’s a lot of lame gowns out there and I thought these were pretty perfect.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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