Celine CEO 专访：奢侈品寒冬里，先让人“想要”再谈增长

See all that bright red and blue showing up in clothes everywhere? You can probably thank Celine’s Michael Rider for that, and for the flocks of red sweaters draped over shoulders on city streets from Paris to New York. On the runway, too, the excitement around the designer’s individualized approach to dressing (and those disc-shaped glasses) is felt. Even the red carpet is reaping the benefit; just take Carey Mulligan’s pleated silver gown, for instance.

It’s clear that Rider is doing something increasingly tricky for luxury today: creating products that people truly want.

“We need to keep building on that desirability. It’s very strong, as you can see from the press coverage,” Celine CEO Séverine Merle says, speaking from her office at the brand’s HQ, housed within Paris’s Hôtel Colbert de Torcy. She herself is wearing the brand’s Heirloom necklace, featuring an array of charms.

Merle has been in the role since 2017, while Rider joined as creative director in October 2024. The designer returned to the house after working there for nine years under Phoebe Philo, and presented his well-received debut collection in July 2025. Since then, Celine has ascended: Rider’s last three shows — FW26, men’s, and women’s SS27 — felt like a trilogy of triumphs.

At the end of Paris Fashion Week, Vogue Runway and Vogue Business global director Nicole Phelps asked members of the Vogue team to share their favorite moments from the SS27 show season. “As usual it’ll be first-come, first-served. I’m grabbing Celine,” Phelps wrote in her email.

Celine, part of the LVMH Fashion Group, which Pietro Beccari has led since January 2026, is not immune to the challenging macroeconomic climate, nor the sharp slowdown in Chinese luxury spending. But Merle is keen to capitalize on the demand that is there — and is growing. “We’re seeing [desirability] take hold among our clients, and particularly among American clients. The ambition is for that desirability to reach increasingly wider circles,” she says. “Of course, we’re committed to remaining highly profitable to fund our broader ambitions. But we put desirability at the heart of the house.”

The brand’s strategy includes addressing both ends of the pricing spectrum, from ultra-high-end offerings to more accessible entry-level categories. And although not the main focus, menswear and fragrances play a role in enhancing the brand’s appeal.

With conditions in China still a challenge, the focus is now on local customers in markets where the brand enjoys strong desirability, including the US, South Korea and Japan. The brand’s regional sales mix is “more balanced than we have ever been”, Merle says. Europe, she adds, remains a very important market.

Founded in 1945 by Céline Vipiana, Celine was acquired by LVMH in 1996. From 2008 to 2017, Philo revitalized the house, transforming it into the go-to label for women drawn to minimalist chic and reaching around €1 billion in sales. Hedi Slimane took the helm as Céline’s artistic, creative and image director in 2018, before famously dropping the accented ‘é’ across all branding. During his tenure, which ended in 2024, he established an aesthetic that blended Parisian haute bourgeoisie with LA rocker glam, and expanded into menswear, couture and fragrance. “Celine is chic, sexy fashion for young people, even if the prices are what they are, and it works,” LVMH chair and CEO Bernard Arnault said at the group’s annual general meeting in April 2024.

After a period of rapid growth, Celine was hit by the broader luxury slowdown. LVMH does not break down sales at individual houses, but according to HSBC estimates and projections, sales declined from €2.6 billion in 2023 to €1.87 billion in 2026.

“Celine is doing better,” LVMH CFO Cécile Cabanis said during the group’s Q3 earnings call in October. She highlighted the double-digit sales growth across both the US and footwear, as well as the strong performance of the Soft Triomphe handbag, launched by Rider. Priced at €2,200, the Soft Triomphe Small Half Moon quickly became the brand’s top-selling bag. (Good luck getting your hands on the purple version.) “What Michael wanted to introduce when he arrived was bags featuring variations on the logo — with slightly smaller logos, softer leathers, and a much wider range of colors. The Soft Triomphe is a perfect example of exactly that,” says Merle.

There’s more: Celine made its debut on Lyst’s hottest brand index at No. 20 in Q1 2026, climbing to No. 15 in Q2. Brand heat is also showing up in resale. On Paris-based luxury resale platform ReSee, the average price for vintage Celine has risen over 50% since Rider started, according to ReSee co-founder and CEO Sofia Bernardin. “We have had a huge uptick in archival Celine,” she says, noting that Phoebe Philo accounts for about 83% of the Celine sold, with the rest being Hedi Slimane and vintage. On Vestiaire Collective, searches combining “Celine” and “Michael Rider” increased 200% between January and September 2026. And following his SS27 show that featured bags with the Triomphe logo, searches for the Triomphe bag surged 1,800% compared with the month prior (October vs September 2026).

It is key to remember that Celine does not have the same budgets as the mega-brands — Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel — so Merle has her work cut out to ensure Rider’s Celine continues to ride high. After winning in the US, the challenge is to take its success global amid a crowded soft luxury market and challenging macroeconomics, which are weighing on consumers’ feel-good factor. The belief is there. “We are very confident that Celine is now getting the right level of traction to become a growth driver for us,” Cabanis said during the Q3 call.

Celine’s secret sauce

Could Celine embody what comes after quiet luxury — a sophisticated yet effortless aesthetic with a playful edge? Backstage after the SS27 show, Vogue chief critic Sarah Mower noted the “undoneness” of the looks. “It’s what I respond to,” Rider said. “I am not turned on by something that’s too rigid, too figé. That’s not what I find stylish. What’s interesting about Celine is that tension, because it is a rigorous place. We are not living on the edge at Celine, and you are coming to get real clothes. I love that; I love when real clothes are worn spontaneously.”

The self-styling of Rider’s shows has been widely praised, as has the scenography of the re-see, which offers an original approach to presenting products through accumulation, layering and a play on color variations or monochromatic schemes. A similar approach is used at 53 Avenue Montaigne, the flagship store that serves as a pilot for the brand’s wider visual merchandising strategy. During a visit to the boutique on Sunday, I noticed the all-red product display at the entrance, the rainbow of silk scarves, and the color gradients of the bags. (I also tried on a fabulous long, black coat.)

“I think there’s a large constituency with finely tuned avant-garde antennae who are turning towards Celine,” Mower tells me. “It feels to me a bit like the buzz that grew around Loewe when Jonathan Anderson began there. It’s attracting those same people, who are after fashion that is not heavily identified with the conventionality of a major Paris house — but who want an insider’s kind of luxury.”

After putting on a standout show, the challenge is also coping with the attention that follows. “I think the real skill is staying cool and managing expectations,” says Mower.

Europe and the US

Merle, it seems, masters the art of staying composed under almost any circumstance. My interview with her was scheduled for October 19. After seeing videos of the looted Celine store on Avenue Montaigne on Saturday, a couple of days prior, I assumed she would cancel or postpone. She didn’t. “The best thing we can do is get back to it as quickly as possible,” she says. By Wednesday, the store had reopened. (The store looting took place the same weekend as LVMH’s Les Journées Particulières, where Celine opened its atelier doors to the public for the first time. Visitors still turned up.)

What impact does she expect from the current unrest in France? “The French market accounts for almost half of Europe for us. So obviously, it’s important from a business perspective, but beyond that, it’s also important in terms of brand image. Celine is a Parisian brand,” she says. “We’ll see how things develop. Paris has been through difficult times before, but it always bounces back. It’s an incredibly resilient city.”

Stateside, the brand is on a hot streak. “We’ve invested quite a lot in the US over the past few years, because our retail network there was relatively small. This also coincided with the moment when Michael’s optimistic, joyful, and colorful vision and aesthetic really began to resonate very strongly with American customers,” she says.

After reopening on Rodeo Drive in September and setting up shop in Aventura Mall in October, there will be a new Celine store in Florida Bal Harbour by the end of the year. “New York is also performing very well for us, although we haven’t reopened any stores there. [The openings in LA and Florida] had been in the works for a long time,” Merle says. “In any case, we’re not pursuing a store opening strategy overall. We’re more focused on expanding and renovating existing stores. But it’s possible that we’ll open a few additional locations [in department stores] dedicated to footwear.” (Celine counts around 200 points of sale retail worldwide.)

Entry-level categories

Speaking of footwear, shoes are emerging as a key category for luxury, offering an entry point for customers. Rider has played his part in the trend. The Jelly and Cage sandals from SS26, as well as the Aura loafer from Rider’s debut spring 2026 collection with a small Triomphe logo in a wide range of colors, are among bestsellers, Merle says.

“With Michael, no category is neglected; it’s part of the way he thinks about dressing and accessorizing the silhouette. Across all our customer acquisition categories, everything is doing extraordinarily well,” she explains. Merle points to the coveted Maison Celine belt: “We’re struggling to keep up with demand.” Belts and silk scarves are seeing strong growth, with sales increasing at a double-digit and triple-digit pace respectively.

It’s also seen across bags. “We think Celine is a brand that needs to be well balanced. We’ve talked about accessories, but we pay very close attention to the prices of our bags. With everything we launch, we’re very careful to make sure it’s priced right. We have a model [for bags] that allows us to strike a balance between the two ends of the spectrum,” Merle says. Among bestsellers is the Duffle bag in canvas, priced at €1,300. “The canvas material allows us to offer highly creative bags at more affordable prices. We’re also launching lots of tote bags, because Michael has a real creative vision for totes. In fact, we saw them in the SS27 show.”

Men’s, couture and fragrance

Menswear, couture, and fragrance all launched under Slimane. Men’s represents less than 10% of the business today. “I think there’s huge potential in menswear, because Michael’s creativity now appeals to a broader audience, but the idea isn’t to increase menswear’s share of total revenue,” says Merle. The idea is for the women’s and menswear to “enrich one another”, she adds, noting they share the same design studio.

Rider debuted his Celine menswear on the runway in June. “We like the idea of holding menswear shows, because it really allows us to express the category in its own right. There have always been a few men in our womenswear shows, too, ever since Michael arrived. I think that will continue. It’s part of the magic of the show.”

Couture, meanwhile, will stay without a dedicated runway for the time being. “For now, we don’t have the capacity to put on another show. That said, we’re really working on developing couture,” says Merle. “I can’t give you any figures, but today, we have a real couture clientele that is very loyal, as well as new clients. There’s a particularly strong appetite for our couture pieces among our American clientele. Some [pieces] are occasionally taken from the runway collections, while others are specially made in our ateliers to expand the offering [while remaining faithful to the spirit of the collection].”

Desirability is built via the beauty business, too, she says. “Fragrance, and everything related to bath and body that we’ve developed, is doing very well,” Merle adds. “Today, we sell these products only through our own network, along with a few retailers such as Le Bon Marché, Harrods, and Umeda Hankyu. We’re staying within our network and at points of sale like that for the time being.”

When I point out to Merle that almost a decade is a considerable tenure, particularly in an industry that continues to undergo major leadership reshuffles, and that she has worked under three successive designers — Philo, Slimane, Rider — she replies, “I feel like it all went by in a flash.”