Melting moments: Celine expands its Haute Parfumerie range

Revolution is a concept Hedi Slimane is familiar with, whether its the ‘skinny silhouette’ he created at Dior Homme, his youth culture-centric designs for Saint Laurent, or his dropping of the accent aigu from Celine and the expanding of the label into menswear, couture and fragrance collections. Now, in November 2021, Celine’s creative director once again into new territories with the launch of the brand’s first candle collection. 

The Celine candles 

Celine’s first journey into fragrance was in 2019 with the launch of its perfume collection, a range of scents made for day and evening wear that drew inspiration from Slimane’s own diaries. Like the perfumes before it, Celine’s eight new luxury candles will be both an expression of Slimane’s personal history and an ode to the grand traditions of French perfumery, a legacy that the brand defines as couturier parfumeur.

The eight candles in the range will feature familiar scents from Celine’s fragrance collection, such as Nightclubbing, which smells of nicotine and ‘the nape of a neck fragrant with vanilla’, as well as new fragrances, like Palimpsest, a blend of gallica rose, pear, ivy and moss, and Grands Lys, an intriguing combination of pimento, ylang-ylang, and heliotrope. 

In keeping with the exacting codes of couturier parfumeur, the candles have been created by the maison’s own wax maker, whose dual training in perfumery (something of an anomaly in the wax-making trade) has given him unparallelled understanding of how fragrance and wax work together to pervade a room. Each wax is formulated according to its fragrance, with six to seven waxes and oils used for each perfume concentrate, as well as a different wick dimension for each scent to optimise diffusion. 

The candles are housed in faceted black glass containers designed by Slimane, who took inspiration from an 18th-century multi-paned silver goblet, adding sleek lines and a monochrome colour palette for a distinctly modern look. 

What’s next for Celine Haute Parfumerie

The candles launched last month at Celine’s New Bond Street London flagship – a sophisticated palace of marbled floors, white walls, and illuminated shelves that is populated with a museum-worthy collection of artworks and design pieces.

Following the candle launch, Celine will continue to grow its Haute Parfumerie range next year; kicking off what is sure to be an exciting 2022 with the announcement that K-Pop rapper Lalisa ‘Lisa’ Manobal will be the brand’s first Global Ambassador for the Celine Haute Parfumerie. While a new perfume called Rimbaud is poised to hit their travertine shelves soon.  

INFORMATION

celine.com