Earlier this month, Celine’s newly appointed creative director, Hedi Slimane, announced the start of his tenure at the French fashion house by doing two things that say a lot about how fashion works in 2018.

Firstly, he deleted the brand’s official Instagram account. Secondly, he changed the logo, principally finessing the spacing between the letters and dropping the acute accent over the e. Céline became Celine. “RIP Céline”, they wrote. And then came a mass defacement of posters in which the acute accent was reinstated.

The posters for the new Celine campaign – glowing models with bobs, and gold foil curtains – were on every street corner. But few went unmarked. Some were streaked with a Sharpie, some scratched with a sharp object. One in Milan appeared to have been marked with blood (though on closer inspection it was more likely paint). And then in the run-up to Paris fashion week, where on Friday Slimane will show his first collection since taking over, a rash of other fashion labels apparently papered over Celine’s posters. In turn, Celine papered over them.

The new Celine campaign.

New designers often tweak old logos. Slimane had already changed the YSL logo to Saint Laurent when he worked there in 2013. And for a fan of industrial design, Slimane’s decision to create a new logo hinged around proportion which also paid homage to the original 1960s version, wasn’t exactly a surprise. Raf Simons rejigged the Calvin Klein logo, Balenciaga’s was slightly reworked by Demna Gvasalia and Diane von Furstenberg’s logo was changed by Jonathan Saunders in 2017. In August, Burberry’s new head Riccardo Tisci launched a pop art version of the logo designed with Peter Savile. Incidents of Burberry posters being papered over have also been reported.

And yet the reaction to Celine’s missing accent hit a nerve, eventually prompting linguists to question its necessity in the first place. During the 1960s there was no accent on Celine, nor was there one during Michael Kors’ term in the early 00s.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Celine teaser poster. Photograph: PR Company Handout

The truth is, it was never really needed. One French colleague explained: “It doesn’t affect the word or its pronunciation, it looks like it’s purely a stylistic decision in order to change the logo and font”. He added: “Spelling and accents seem to have lost their importance in France anyway.”

However, the French fashion writer Alice Pfeiffer thinks it is more a comment on globalisation. Losing the accent makes it easier to use in a text message. And makes it less French. “Reinstating it is a sign of proud Frenchness and refusal of the Americanisation of French culture – and making it purposely unpronounceable, confusing or unwritable for [your] keyboards?” Losing the accent said less about rebranding Celine and more about rebranding “the idea of Frenchness” altogether.

Pfeiffer thinks this form of brandalism – in which logos or brands are deliberately (and often artfully) vandalised – could be part of a wider anti-imperialist movement, starting with culture: “La Femme, Juliette Armanet and lots of bands chose to sing in French only – there is a return to chanson Française.” All this after accusations that the government is dumbing down the French language by removing accents – two years ago #JeSuisCirconflexe campaigners criticised the Académie Française for changing more than 2,400 words.

These theories have weight, though it’s more likely the motive was purely sentimental. In this case, the departure of Phoebe Philo and the appointment of Slimane. Philo is a woman, and one who turned the label into one of believable daywear cut for comfort rather than sex – or, to speak 2018, cut for the female gaze rather than the male one. In short, Phoebe has become an adjective for a unique sort of minimalism, preferably in navy.Slimane is a man who, at Dior Homme, made baggy clothes tighter, and loves black. For Philo’s fans, erasing her digital and grammatical legacy was a step too far.

No one knows who vandalised the posters. Fingers have been pointed at both vigilantes and Celine’s marketing department (it would not comment). But it doesn’t matter who is doing it. Spotting a defaced Celine poster is like stumbling across a fresh Banksy tag, and in many ways one of those vital viral moments in fashion in which drama outweighs what is a fairly standard move: rebranding a brand.