As a teenager in a sleepy coastal town, I looked to Phoebe Philo as a lifeline to a world of honest beauty and glamour with substance. Her designs, soundtracks, and reference images inspired me; her words, notoriously rare, guided me. I gathered as many of these things around me as I could, scouring eBay for the inspiration books that were left on guests’ seats and delighting in being gifted a vinyl single of Jaydee’s ’90s techno hit “Plastic Dreams,” the thumping soundtrack to Philo’s Céline debut. I almost used a line taken from a 2011 interview she did with Style.com describing her inspiration—“that idea of the kind of woman who doesn’t care what she looks like when she’s dancing”—as my yearbook quote. I still regret that I didn’t run with it, even though it wouldn’t have made much sense in the sea of headshots. In the fall of 2014, I was studying in London, and as the new kid I felt a bit lost and insecure. Alone in my dorm room, I logged on to watch Style.com’s video of the spring 2015 Céline collection. And as jackhammers tore up the street in the alley below, there was Philo, in her soothing voice, speaking about how vulnerability, uncertainty, and risk had shaped the collection.

“Plastic Dreams,” the thumping soundtrack to Philo’s Céline debut. I almost used a line taken from a 2011 interview she did with Style.com describing her inspiration—“that idea of the kind of woman who doesn’t care what she looks like when she’s dancing”—as my yearbook quote. I still regret that I didn’t run with it, even though it wouldn’t have made much sense in the sea of headshots. In the fall of 2014, I was studying in London, and as the new kid I felt a bit lost and insecure. Alone in my dorm room, I logged on to watch Style.com’s video of the spring 2015 Céline collection. And as jackhammers tore up the street in the alley below, there was Philo, in her soothing voice, speaking about how vulnerability, uncertainty, and risk had shaped the collection.