News of Phoebe Philo's eponymous line first surfaced in July 2021 with a statement that LVMH group were taking a minority stake. Philo also noted her wish ‘to be independent, to govern and experiment on my own terms’. The initial launch was slated to take place last year.
Here we are in 2023, and there is still more than six months to wait for Phoebe Philo the label, as well as Phoebe Philo the woman to emerge again.
Since 2017, when she walked away from Celine, the landscape of fashion has transformed, with seismic shifts in body positivity and diversity making fashion more representative of the world at large. Will she be addressing a broader range of sizes and shapes in her new collection? Undoubtedly. Philo has always been a designer concerned with the female gaze, rather than the male.
So what else can we expect? When she launched her first Celine collection in 2009 Philo said, “it felt better for me to work on an idea of a wardrobe than too much trend. I worked hard to create things that stand the test of time.”
As anyone who owns a Phoebe Philo designed item of clothing, whether it is from during her eight year tenure at Celine, or earlier when she headed up Chloe, her clothes - whether slouchy tailoring, Crombie-style coats, or chunky funnel-necked knits - have an insouciant quality which don't date, and don't break.
For now, Philophiles have to wait first until July, when "registration opens," and again until September when they will be able to buy the designer's clothes once again.
