For his sophomore show, Michael Rider decamped from Celine headquarters in central Paris to Parc de Saint-Cloud — about a one-hour car ride away, or nearly 90 minutes by public transit — and erected an open-air runway theater in a shady, breezy alley.
“I thought it would be nice if we got out of the city and to a park, where I think it’s nice to spend time,” he said after the show.
Although the hugely inconvenient venue was different, the collection felt familiar — on purpose.
Asked how he approached his second effort, he replied, “Not much different than the first. We were thinking still in terms of foundation.”
Indeed, Rider had set a promising and fetching template with his debut, drawing the best elements from the Hedi Slimane era and the Phoebe Philo years, of which he was part, a