We’ve come to expect theatrics from Mr Hedi Slimane, the creative director of CELINE HOMME, but the digital presentation he put on this July for the brand’s SS22 collection was quite something even by his own standards. Taking place amid pine forests on a sandy island in the south of France and performed to the tune of a thousand screeching cicadas, “Cosmic Cruiser” was a merry mash-up of traditional runway show, freestyle motocross event and house music gig, with tunes coming courtesy of resident DJ Ms Izzy Camina.

Far removed from the typical fashion week fare, then. But hardly out of character for the brand, which last season put on a paean to the New Romantics with the French Renaissance-inspired “Teen Knight Poem”, a fashion show set against the grand backdrop of the 16th-century Château de Chambord and featuring models astride charging stallions carrying flags bearing the CELINE logo. Subtle? Not exactly. Impactful? Undoubtedly.

Slimane has a well-earned reputation as fashion’s premier cultural curator, his collections often referencing youth movements of the 20th century. This season’s “Cosmic Cruiser” presentation was no exception as he turned his attention to the late 1980s rave scene that peaked during the “Second Summer of Love”, a moment of mass euphoria that looks set to repeat itself as a generation of party-starved teens steps cautiously out of the shadows of the pandemic.