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Hedi Slimane was appointed artistic, creative and image director of Céline in January 2018. In September, before his first collection, the house wiped its Instagram account and revealed a new logo.

The change looks small and is not. The accent on the first e is gone, a move the house said created a simpler, more balanced proportion and recalled 1960s collections where the accent was rarely used. The spacing was evened out and the letters drawn closer together in what WWD reported the house described as a modernist typography from the 1930s. The word Paris, part of the 1960s version, returns inside clothing and on packaging but not under the logo in campaigns.

The wiped Instagram, left with just the announcement posts, was read as erasing Phoebe Philo's much-loved era, and her devotees took it personally. W magazine called the logo controversial; Who What Wear tracked the rebrand only getting more heated. In Paris during fashion week, The Guardian reported, someone went around Celine posters writing the accent back in.

The logo was Slimane's own call, announced through the brand's channels rather than credited to an agency. Harper's Bazaar predicted the cleaner aesthetic would polarise fans, and coverage placed it alongside Burberry's new wordmark the month before, as part of the same wave.

Business of Fashion read the accent-free logo as part of a deliberate pre-show drip. Instead of staying silent until the runway, Slimane used Instagram to post his first campaign, shown on white trucks driving around New York, alongside the new logo, while posters appeared in key cities and Lady Gaga carried his first handbag. The logo was the visible tip of a much larger overhaul: Slimane was renovating 140 stores and expanding into menswear, fragrance and couture, with LVMH's chairman telling investors he expected the house to reach at least two to three billion euros in sales within five years.

The move made a clear point: a new creative director marking territory before showing a single garment. Losing the accent cost a little Frenchness and gained a lot of crispness. It is defensible design and a deliberately provocative gesture.