Celine cancels Sunday evening runway show due to French riots

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 1, 2023

Celine has cancelled its evening menswear runway show planned for Sunday evening in Paris, due to concerns about the current French riots.

However, for the moment, the four-day Paris haute couture season with 32 houses which starts Monday morning is expected to continue. Most of its shows take place during daytime.
 
“Due to the events of recent days and to avoid any potential risk for the safety of our guests and our team, we regret to inform you that we are cancelling the Celine Homme summer 2024 show, which was due to be held at La Gaité Lyrique this Sunday, July 2 at 8:30PM,” the house said in a terse statement.

While the house’s creative director Hedi Slimane expressed his opinion on his personal Instagram account: “Having a fashion show in Paris, while France and its capital are bereaved and bruised, from my point of view alone, seems inconsiderate and totally out of place.”
 
On Friday, Chloé called off a planned celebration of Karl Lagerfeld’s creations for the brand, and on Saturday night Courrèges postponed its annual club night.
 
Celine is one of some 10 fashion houses controlled by the giant luxury conglomerate LVMH, whose Seine-side luxury department store Samaritaine was attacked and partly set on fire by riots in the current unrest.
 
However, a spokesman for another LVMH-house Patou, said it still plans to go ahead with its own show on Sunday night, scheduled at Salle Wagram at 6PM. While the house of Alaïa, which is controlled by rival group Richemont, has indicated that it plans to go ahead with an 8PM show in the Marais.
 
France has been rocked for the past week by rioting, sparked off by the killing of an unarmed teenager Nahel Merzouk by a policeman at a traffic stop in Nanterre, a western suburb of the capital. Since a video of the incident showing the 17-year-old killed at point blank range, many poorer neighbourhoods in major French cities have erupted into open revolt – with hundreds of burnt cars and trams, and arson attack on schools and police stations. 
 
On Sunday, French president Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany because of the ongoing unrest.
 
Shops in the center of Paris have been taking additional security measures for the past few days. The city’s main square Place de la Concorde has been packed with hundreds of paramilitary CRS troops and closed off at night.
 
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday”.

The three Sunday shows were all ready-to-war collections, planned for the night before Paris begins a four-day season of haute couture, which caters to billionaire’s wives and Gulf princesses, on Monday.
 
The Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Couture, which controls all runway seasons in Paris, has indicated that all 32 couture shows will go ahead as planned.