Michael Rider’s first menswear collection for Celine unfolded with a sense of ease and clarity. Presented on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, Spring Summer 2027 was built around the idea of dressing as something personal rather than prescribed.

Inside Tennis Club de Paris, the setting was stripped back and bright. The soundtrack rippled across genres from Björk’s My Spine, to Barbatuques’ Baianá, adding a rhythm that carried the show from start to finish. On the runway, the clothes moved across moods with a similar sense of looseness. Tailoring appeared relaxed and unforced, sitting alongside ballooned trousers, soft knits, striped shirting and easy outerwear.The guiding idea was simple: getting dressed for yourself, and for the joy of it — a sentiment echoed in the show notes, written as a letter from Rider himself: “RISK. STYLE. SINCERITY.”

Texture and detail added to the feeling. Beaded ties, bejewelled arm bands, necklaces, and belts that more closely resembled jewellery gave each look – and their wearer – a distinct sense of personality. They suggested a wardrobe built from pieces kept, worn and returned to – or, as the show notes put it, "Making do with a few great things." An expansive colour palette achieved the same effect, beginning with all-black and monochromatic neutral looks, only to be disrupted by pops of washed burgundy, red, cerulean blue, and buttery yellow.

Styling, too, carried an unstudied ease. Looks came together with a looseness that felt instinctive, as though the models could have stepped off the runway and straight into a Parisian club, a university campus, a red carpet, perhaps a summer festival. To use Rider’s own words, they had “panache”, but at the same time were “very unaware of having it.”

And poised in the FROW were Grace Jones, Oscar Isaac, Mark Ronson, George MacKay, Noah Jupe and Finn Wolfhard — a mix of figures across music, film and culture that reflected the breadth of Celine’s world under Rider.