The season’s most unexpected accessory has been hiding in a tuxedo: the cummerbund. At the recent men’s shows in Paris, Céline designer Michael Rider gave the black-tie staple a fresh context.
Rather than pairing it with classic tailoring, Rider recast the cummerbund in rich plum and Barbie-pink hues, styling it with the house’s cult jazz shoes and balloon trousers with upturned hems — a playful rejig of one of menswear’s most traditional pieces.
The modern cummerbund traces back to 19th-century British officers in India, who adopted the local kamarband as a lightweight alternative to the waistcoat. It later hardened into a Western black-tie symbol — which makes its runway comeback all the more unlikely.
As tailoring keeps loosening up, the cummerbund’s reinvention feels of the moment: a formal relic reborn as a statement waist accessory with far more range than its buttoned-up reputation suggests.
