Celine’s Best-Selling Product Are A Pair of Jeans Worn by Kendrick Lamar

"Celine didn’t market them and Kendrick Lamar wore them once. That was enough to make them the brand’s most-searched product of the quarter, according to the Lyst Index."

"Kendrick Lamar on the Super Bowl LIX stage in Celine’s “Flared Surf” denim. A single appearance sent searches soaring. Credit: Getty"

Kendrick Lamar entered the Crypto.com Arena in February with little fuss, performing a brief guest set during a benefit concert. He wore a charcoal baseball cap, a white tee, and Celine’s loose straight-leg jeans. A style credit did the rounds on X a few hours later; within forty-eight hours, search queries containing Celine and jeans grew at a rate the brand had not seen since Hedi Slimane’s tenure began in 2018.

The moment might have passed as a footnote if the Q1 edition of the Lyst Index had not confirmed what fan accounts suspected. Celine’s most-searched product between January and March was the same pair of jeans, beating the brand’s leather jackets, sunglasses, and even its Triomphe shoulder bag. Across the wider Index, the denim placed inside the top ten products of the quarter, alongside the Adidas Taekwondo trainer and Puma’s Speedcat Ballet shoe.

"Top ten products, Q1 2025. Celine denim lands in the mix alongside cult trainers from Adidas and Puma. Credit: Lyst"

Why did an unpublicised sighting carry such weight? Lamar rarely participates in traditional fashion cycles; his wardrobe choices seldom arrive with press notes or paid partnerships. When he does surface, the styling feels personal rather than packaged. That scarcity gives each look a forensic quality; fans screen-grab, magnify stitching, trace garments back to retailers, then circulate links with timestamps. The ripple spreads quickly across resale sites and Discord servers, turning a single candid into a quasi-campaign.

Celine’s own marketing leaned elsewhere during the period. The house continued to push its “Age of Indieness” video, its tailored women’s suits, and a series of grunge-tinged leather pieces. Denim featured in lookbooks, yet the jeans in question never headlined a newsletter or starred in paid social. The spike arrived independent of any schedule, underlining an increasingly common dynamic: an organic cue from a figure with genuine cultural capital outperforms weeks of paid amplification.

"Still from Celine’s “Age of Indieness” film. Slimane’s focus during the same quarter the jeans went viral. Credit: Celine/YouTube"

Slimane, who built much of his Saint Laurent legacy on skinny silhouettes, has spent his Celine years loosening proportions. The jeans Lamar chose sit off the hip and break at the trainer, a silhouette closer to early-2000s skatewear than the gaunt rock-star lines Slimane once imposed. Their sudden popularity signals confidence in the re-shaping of Celine’s menswear; the audience is willing to follow, provided the endorsement feels earned.

It also points to denim’s current mood. After seasons of carpenter pockets and aggressive distressing, buyers appear ready for something simpler. Searches for raw jeans and straight leg rose through Q1, according to Lyst’s dataset. Lamar’s pair arrived washed, subtle, and free of logos, the kind of garment that fits into wardrobes rather than dictating them. At a time when trend churn feels accelerated, a classic cut worn by a low-visibility icon offers stability.

"Celine “Flared Surf” jeans, £1,050 at time of writing. Minimal branding, maximum traction. Credit: Celine.com"

The lesson for luxury houses is blunt: consumer attention remains volatile, yet a single, resonant cue can still cut through the noise. That cue rarely comes from staged rollouts; it comes from genuine cultural moments with recognisable stakes. Lamar, a Pulitzer-winning musician who releases music on his own timeframe, provides those stakes each time he steps outside. In this instance he happened to choose Celine, and the market responded accordingly.

None of this guarantees repeat success. A second wear-and-search pattern could unfold next quarter, or the crowd might move on once the novelty fades. For now, the jeans stand as evidence that influence thrives when it feels incidental. The audience spotted a garment in the wild, claimed it, and rewrote the brand’s product hierarchy for three months straight. Celine supplied the denim; Kendrick supplied the context. The numbers did the rest.