Phoebe Philo Will Debut New Brand In September
After years of speculation, Phoebe Philo announces she will reveal her inaugural collection online in the fall.
Phoebe Philo’s eponymous brand finally (phinally?!) has a debut date.
Philo has been like a wondrous specter floating over the fashion industry since her departure from Celine in 2018, with fashion fanatics still pining for her surrealist, understated, sophisticated clothes. In the five years since, it seems that everyone—shoppers and designers alike—has become a Philophile. Rumours that she would lead Burberry, that she was secretly designing Loro Piana, or that she would take over one of the crown jewel brands at LVMH or Kering have pinged across countless fashion world WhatsApp chats—and the chatter only increased when Philo announced, in June 2021, that she would launch her own eponymous brand, with a tentative launch date of January 2022.
That date came and went, sending her acolytes into further turmoil. But now, it seems, their pain will be supplanted by pure excitement: on Thursday, Philo’s Instagram announced in a simple image of white Times New Roman text on a black background that “the inaugural collection will be revealed and available on our website, phoebephilo.com, in September 2023.” It also added that the website, which currently directs to a server malfunction page, will be open for registration come July.
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This reticent message offers us a few tea leaves to read: one implication is that Philo will presumably work on the standard fashion calendar, revealing collections in September and likely in the spring. But it’s unclear whether she’ll also stage fashion shows; the wording suggests she’ll have something of a see-now, buy-now model. The statement also leaves open the possibility of a completely different strategy: that she might release collections on a sort of rolling basis, say, with pieces available in extremely limited quantities—which would be both the ultimate luxury, as a sort of artisanal fashion model that’s both reminiscent of golden age couture and sustainable in a hyper-contemporary way. It would allow Philo to retain the sort of stealth cult status she seems to enjoy.
Knowing Philo, however the clothing is “revealed” will be immaculate, seductive, and inspiring.
This article originally appeared in Harper's BAZAAR US.