Michael Rider is an American designer who cut his teeth in Paris. He worked under Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga, before helping to shape CELINE’s vision during the Phoebe Philo years. From there, he was selected by Ralph Lauren himself to become the creative director at the eponymous label. Some CV, right?

In fashion circles, he was known as the insider’s insider, preferring the hard graft of designing beautiful clothes to the rigmarole of the fashion circus. There is a grounded element to his creations, which seems to stem from carefully developing his craft and a previous life as a teacher at a public school in Oakland, California.

Returning to Paris as the creative director of CELINE, Rider’s debut collection was widely lauded, combining American prep and relaxed tailoring, flashes of primary colours and washed denim with a Parisian sensibility. You could see hints of the greats that had come before him: the slim silhouette of Hedi Slimane, Philo’s minimalism and Michael Kors’ Americana, but with new “attitudes” as Rider calls it. That punchy shade of red seen throughout looks set to become a colourful signature.

“I definitely did not want there to be a sense of erasure,” Rider told Vogue in the wake of his first show. “There was a foundation to build on here. It felt modern, ethical and strong.”

As the exclusive online retailer for Rider’s CELINE, we took the collection to – where else – Paris. To corner bistros and apartments with high ceilings, with a selection of Rider’s new offering that includes oversized check shirts, cropped denim, a mixture of tailoring and bold leather jackets, along with knitwear and jersey that riffs on the house’s classic horse carriage logo.

“I’ve always loved the idea of clothing that lives on,” Rider wrote in the collection’s show notes. “That becomes a part of the wearer’s life, that may capture a moment in time but also speaks to years and years of gestures and occasions and change, of the past, the present and the future, of memories, of usefulness and of fantasy, of life really."

Another standout is a fresh approach to the brand’s Phantom Luggage bag that was introduced by Philo back in 2011, itself referencing the original Mistral bag designed by Céline Vipiana. Creating a signature bag is pretty much essential for any elite designer today.

Rider’s Smile luggage – in supple lambskin with zip detailing that looks a lot like, as you might have guessed, a smile – feels like the birth of a new It-bag. A pleasing combination of a new idea with a touch of humour, but also the result of impeccable heritage and craft.

If there’s an underlying philosophy for Rider’s CELINE, it appears to be unpretentious and concise. Speaking with W Magazine earlier this year, he said that his clothes are meant to be worn for a long time by men and women, mixed with pieces of different price points and eras.

“CELINE makes strong fashion out of real clothes and doesn’t need to distract or push into the realm of abstraction in order to excite.”