By Charlotte Dominy
Edited by DeVoe
“And my chick in that new Phoebe Philo,” sings Kayne West on his track “Dark Fantasy”, the first song on his critically acclaimed 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
When I first heard the line, I remember stopping in the middle of the street to replay it. I knew who Phoebe Philo was: creative director of Chloé from 2001 to 2006, and Céline from 2008 to 2017. I also knew he was specifically referencing Phoebe Philo’s 2010 Spring/Summer collection for Céline. Philo designed the massively successful and recently repopularized Paddington bag at Chloé, but it was her 2010 Céline debut that cemented her reputation.
I also knew that Phoebe Philo had announced the launch of a namesake brand in 2021, and in 2023 her first collection was released on phoebephilo.com. Accompanied by little advertising and no runway show, the launch sold out over half of the collection within just the first two days. Even today the company is still thriving, with 2025 sales tripling from the previous year and surpassing $41 million ($57 million Canadian).
Okay, maybe I didn’t know all of that, but I definitely knew about the Paddington.
You can know these things about a fashion designer, but when you weren’t fully present in the fashion industry during a designer’s peak, it’s hard to understand the extent of their cultural impact beyond industry knowledge. But there it was, a lyrical allusion from Kayne West, a direct reference in popular culture. Phoebe Philo, the inventor of 2010s minimalism that we still ride off today. See her once, you see her everywhere. So, who is she? Why should you care?
If you’ve ever heard someone comment on the lack of female designers in the fashion industry and found yourself a little peeved, here’s the designer for you. Phoebe Philo was mentored by Stella McCartney, and a mentor to a good handful of the male designers in lead positions today: Matthew Blazy for Chanel, Daniel Lee for Burberry, and Michael Rider for Céline, to name a few. With a reputation of dressing the real, working woman, Phoebe Philo’s design philosophy is pragmatic. In her own words:
“The nonsense has cleared up a bit and I think that maybe there’s a more straightforward attitude [to fashion], which I appreciate. There’s a bit of relevance for fantasy and forward thinking but I think that the recession has brought a bit of reality to us all. I have never been one of those fantastical designers and I don’t want to get too caught up in all of that stuff.”
Beyond her gender, Phoebe Philo is an incognito cultural icon. The reason department stores like Zara and H&M look how they do today can be credited almost entirely to Phoebe Philo’s photobook, clothing, and set designs. Kayne West said so himself when talking about the Yeezus track “New Slaves”:
“You can have on a Zara pant, right? And a girl walks in with the Céline version, and you feel like shit. That is the problem. I’m talkin’ about us, the new slaves, the people who love fashion. I’m talking about us, you know? ‘Cause I’m a slave to it. I love it. I love it!”
He speaks a common truth. The twenty-dollar sunglasses you’re wearing are probably a sneaky replica of the nearly thousand-dollar sunglasses released for her namesake label in 2023. The silk slip dress, the one that makes your mom comment how people would never consider wearing those as outerwear in her days, probably owes its credit to Phoebe Philo’s Céline too.
Looking beyond what you wear, that silk blouse Kayne West was wearing at Coachella in 2011? Phoebe Philo’s latest Céline. Joan Didion’s sunglasses that sold for $27,000? Also Phoebe Philos Céline. She was even the poster girl for the 2015 eyewear campaign. Didn’t know? Well, now you do.
The reality is, Phoebe Philo’s aesthetic fingerprint is everywhere in popular culture. Sometimes it’s easy to get locked in the echo chamber of the fashion landscape, and assume certain designers are only known within that specialised sphere. Names like Phoebe Philo can help you understand the extent to which you and the average person are unknowingly under fashion’s canopy. So, beyond this little blog post, I urge you to go look into her shows and stories (like her relationship to Kayne West!) yourself.
