Céline Dion: The looks that became her armor against illness and vulnerability

A marathon career. Over 16 years, from 2003 to 2019, she headlined two historic residencies at The Colosseum in the famed Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, performing 1,141 concerts for 4,555,508 spectators and grossing $680 million. Her return following her 2022 diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare neurodegenerative disease, announced on her social media on March 30, will consist of 26 concerts running from September through May 2027 at the Paris La Défense Arena, which has a capacity of 40,000. And the most spectacular fashion serves as her finest performative armor against illness and vulnerability.Isaac Brekken (WireImage)

A dream comeback. Céline Dion made her return to the spotlight on July 26, 2024, at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, delivering a historic performance from the Eiffel Tower of Édith Piaf’s 'Hymne à l’amour.' In her first performance since being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, she wore a creation by Maria Grazia Chiuri, then at Dior Haute Couture, featuring 500 meters of fringe and thousands of beads and sequins, restoring the diva of divas to her throne. Handout (Screengrab by IOC via Getty Imag)

Defying the cult of youth. “For a long time, the entertainment industry has demanded perpetual youth from women. It has treated both maturity and illness as a loss of value. Céline is returning at 58, and she is doing so at the height of visibility, through artifice and on a monumental scale. And she has chosen Paris, a city that embodies the history and culture of fashion and haute couture,” says designer Ana Locking. “I joined Drag Race España when I was over 50, and I discovered a space where maturity did not have to mean becoming more discreet,” she adds, referring to the television show on which she served as a judge. In the image, Dion wears a Dior gown during her first concert in Paris.Samir Hussein (Samir Hussein/WireImage)

Queen of street style once again. The French Canadian artist is already in Paris rehearsing for her eagerly awaited residency of 26 concerts at the Plénitude Arena, better known as Paris La Défense Arena, beginning on September 12. The entrance to her hotel, Le Royal Monceau, where dozens of fans keep watch day and night, has become an anything-but-improvised runway, with the singer once again delighting onlookers in standout looks from Alaïa, Tom Ford and Loewe.DKPAR/Mega (GC Images)

The persona and the person. One of her survival strategies in coping with the neurodegenerative illness she lives with has been trying to separate the person from the public figure. In her documentary 'I Am: Céline Dion,' which captures some of her most vulnerable moments, she recalls having to go into the recording studio in pain. “To survive the magnitude of their own fame, stars create a kind of double identity,” says writer and cultural commentator Lidia García.Jackson Lee (GC Images)

Fashion as an act of agency. “When the body is affected by illness and no longer responds as we expect it to, our relationship with it changes,” reflects designer Ana Locking, who has herself lived through breast cancer. “For a public figure like Céline Dion, there is also the danger of losing control over her artistic identity: of ceasing to be Céline Dion and becoming, in the eyes of others, the sick Céline Dion. In her case, fashion is an act of agency, a way of remaining powerful, extravagant and defiant. When the body stops obeying, it is important to be able to decide how you want to present yourself.”Dominique Charriau (WireImage)

A bold and fearless diva. A look back at Céline Dion’s style over the past decade, after she began working with Law Roach in 2016, reveals a remarkable fashion transformation. The stylist, who also works with celebrities such as Zendaya and Ariana Grande, introduced the Canadian singer to the world of street style, dressing her in designs by Schiaparelli, Alexandre Vauthier, Iris van Herpen, Off-White and Balenciaga. Her image evolved from conservative, restrained and unremarkable to one that embraced theatricality, maximalism and a distinctly avant-garde sensibility.Jacopo Raule (Getty Images)

Showstopping looks. In 'I Am: Céline Dion,' the singer acknowledges the impact of her outfits: once a look has been worn, it can never be repeated. She also highlights the work of the people who design for her mobility, comfort and ease of movement, revealing some of the tricks behind the scenes, from invisible zippers to detachable cuffs. “A garment may appear highly structured from the outside while concealing flexible panels or technical solutions that allow freedom of movement. One of fashion's greatest challenges in the service of performance is ensuring that all of this technical complexity disappears before our eyes,” says Ana Locking.James Devaney (GC Images)

The power of camp. American philosopher Susan Sontag famously defined camp as a love of the unnatural, of artifice and exaggeration. “Excess stops being a mask when it is not hiding anything. We tend to associate vulnerability with stripping away all artifice, but artifice can also be honest. Camp has spent decades showing that exaggeration, theatricality and pushing identity to its limits can be a wonderful way of affirming it,” says Ana Locking. “Céline Dion is camp genealogy through and through. She embraces all of its historical baggage and has long been a great ally of the LGBTQ+ community,” adds Lidia García.Raymond Hall (GC Images)

Sky-high heels, no matter the cost. The singer has always adored towering heels. At the worst point of her illness, she could barely walk, yet she has once again been spotted navigating the streets of Paris in vertiginous stilettos. “When a girl loves her shoes, she always makes them fit,” she says in her documentary, where she also admits that she sometimes squeezed her toes into shoes that were too small. She recalls being asked her shoe size in stores: “ I say, 'No, you don't understand — What size do you have? I'll make them work, I'll make them fit.' From six to ten, give it to me, I love them.”Isaac Brekken (WireImage)

When fashion becomes power. “For a woman to feel invincible at a moment of vulnerability, she has to feel beautiful and confident. You need to be able to forget what you're wearing because that garment already gives you enough confidence to focus on other things,” says designer Jorge Redondo. “It takes a great deal of personality and self-confidence to pull off looks like Céline Dion's. I love the way she uses fashion to have fun and to communicate,” he adds.Gotham (GC Images)

Dressing for power. The singer skillfully deploys the styling tools that help project authority, both onstage and off. “For someone who feels small and wants to say something bigger, we can turn to volume and sparkle. They work especially well on large stages, where you want to be the protagonist,” explains designer Jorge Redondo. Ana Locking points out that “monumentality does not have to be heavy. You can create an enormous, dramatic silhouette using lightweight fabrics, flexible boning and new technological materials that generate volume without physically weighing down the body.”James Devaney (GC Images)

The power of reinvention. “Dressing a certain way does not solve pain or cure illness, but it can help us rebuild a wounded self-image,” says Ana Locking. “Grooming oneself, putting on makeup or dressing in an extraordinary way does not mean hiding what is happening to us. That artifice can help us rebuild ourselves. It is wonderful to see Céline Dion appear with all that powerful sophistication. We know there is a vulnerable body beneath it and, at the same time, we see a woman who continues, with courage and determination, to build her identity, her beauty and her public presence.” DKPAR/Mega (GC Images)

In praise of excess. Reflecting on Céline Dion's grand-diva aesthetic, Lidia García argues that it represents a form of rebellion “against 'good taste' as understood in a bourgeois sense and as Pierre Bourdieu described it in 'Distinction' (1979): aesthetic preferences and personal taste are neither free nor natural, but shaped by social class. In what has traditionally been considered 'feminine,' good taste is associated with modesty and restraint. Céline Dion and Spain's folclóricas, like all great divas, share a celebration of excess, even if they come from different musical genres and aesthetic traditions,” she says.David Redfern (Redferns)

The triumph of theatricality. Céline Dion's power does not come from her wardrobe alone; it also stems from her larger-than-life stage presence. “She celebrates emotional excess in its most extreme and unfiltered form, as well as an aesthetic built around looks and performances that sit far outside the narrow parameters of ‘good taste’, which tend to reward the opposite,” argues Lidia García. She also draws a parallel between the singer of hits such as 'My Heart Will Go On' and the heart-rending 'All by Myself' and the world of 'copla,' the dramatic Spanish song genre associated with powerful female performers. “They challenge the idea that suffering should be endured in silence. Suffering is expressed loudly, through song, and out in the open.”John Shearer (Getty Images for THR)