The Genius Of Hedi Slimane
Designer, Photographer, Multitudinous Createur, there is no denying that Hedi Slimane is arguably in a league of his own. He’s been credited with revolutionizing men’s fashion and can lay claim to defining much of the wardrobe of 21st-century men. He’s worked as both a designer and creative director at some of the biggest fashion houses in the world, such as Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior. He’s published several books on photography. He has even designed album covers for artists like Phoenix, Daft Punk and Lady Gaga and has contributed to top fashion magazines including Vogue and Vanity Fair.
In the past few years, Slimane has been called “the single most influential men’s designer of this century” with his designs not only copied on other runways but other houses adopting versions of his whole strategy. Change always tends to incite controversy and his work has been applauded as well as panned by observers of the fashion world. Since he took the mantle of Yves Saint Laurent, nearly every decision he’s made has been subject to intense debate even more so after he changed the name of Yves Saint Laurent to Saint Laurent Paris as part of his makeover for the label. In 2011, he banned the influential New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn from debut shows because of an article in which she commented that his slim tailoring and street casting had a root in the earlier work of Raf Simons. In 2012, Slimane severed a 15-year relationship with Parisian boutique Colette because the latter sold a R-shirt with the slogan “Ain’t Laurent without Yves”.
But despite the opinions of his critics and having been continually subjected to criticism throughout most of his design career, criticism and polemic somehow allowed him to simply go straight to the point and propelled him into stardom while also being something that he is quite accustomed to. Reticent and shy, Slimane carries a pared-down approach to the presentation of himself that applies also to the presentation of his work. He is also notoriously press shy and never one to talk readily about himself (save only the comments to reporters to rebut criticism that he was being disrespectful when he dropped the word “Yves” from the label), he has remained somewhat elusive in his career. Rarely does he consent to an interview and if he does it is under the condition that it be solely conducted by e-mail.
In his relatively brief life as a fashion designer he has garnered reputation from comparisons to Yves Saint Laurent when he was just 28 and does not conform to what designers have done prior at fashion houses. At 47, Slimane bears a striking resemblance to the young Yves Saint Laurent but looks at least a decade younger. Given the trajectory of his work, in the truest sense, both designers approach their work with the same intent of dressing their peers. While Yves Saint Laurent invented the idea to play with elements or proportions of past decades in his collections, in the same way Slimane designs his collections and style’s it on his own simultaneously, so that the attitude in the clothes can be the initial inspiration.
One of the things that sets Slimane apart from other designers is his vision, and that everything he does represents his vision so perfectly. He is one of the rare few designers that one could call a ‘Visionary’ who’s equally, if not more, comfortable foraying the worlds of music, art and interior design. Then there is the perfection of each individual garment, the almost magnetic sense of desirability his clothes inspire when you see them in a store. Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel who indelibly lost 90 lbs. in weight in order that he could adopt Slimane’s new skinny silhouette, aptly described the genius of Slimane saying, “Hedi’s attitude is right and what he does and designs is about attitude. From his generation, he expresses modernity better than any other menswear designer. But he is much more than a designer. He has an eye for total modernity. Photography and design are part of that. His vision is totally now in the three different, but not so different, areas. And few designers have more than a double vision of what is going on and know how to translate it into designs and images.”
While it is true that he has designed for only two fashion houses, Saint Laurent and Dior, Slimane has a stranglehold on the fashion industry today with his shadow still looming large over menswear. While his design influence is still evident years after his first Dior Homme collection, in the past few years, his work has been subject to interpretation and appropriation with his clothes and his methods been copied wholesale by many other designers. His post fashion life has not gone unnoticed and the multi-hyphenate has also reinvented himself as a photographer, producing an array of strikingly intimate portraits that has and are almost as popular as the fashion houses he’s overhauled themselves.
Slimane is synonymous to being a rock star more than almost anyone else in the fashion world. It is often said that he has transformed the male silhouette with a deep affinity for Music that reverberates through all of his work. His aesthetic is reminiscent of the punk scene with his role in styling the likes of Mick Jagger and Jack White, but at the same time less of the rebellion of those times and more of the music associated with it. And it’s not hard to see why, given that he spent his Paris childhood in the ’70s and ’80s worshiping David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. The extent to which this transformation has affected the general public and the bottom line of LVMH is debatable. Slimane’s menswear lines have drawn on the sartorial style of various movements in rock music, chief among them the revival of British guitar rock. In turn, the bands that inspired Slimane ended up wearing his clothes: (newer acts like Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand) while old-timers like Bowie and Jagger have become friends as well as clients.
As singular as his fashion design Slimane also has an intimate, unscripted photographic style. His photo work rock portrait photography in particular, often portrays musicians at the fringes of fame or notoriety: up-and-coming artists whose bona fides lie primarily in the independent music scene. Artists like Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty achieved widespread renown. Slimane attributes his longstanding fascination with androgyny in part to the ambiguities in his first name (pronounced with a silent “h” – Edi Sli-man), As a student, the French-born, Italian-Tunisian (Born in Paris in 1968 to an Italian mother and a Tunisian father,) took classes in photography and studied political science. He grew up in the Buttes-Chaumont district. His father, a retired accountant, had been a boxer in Bordeaux (poids leger, of course), and he met Hedi’s mother, an Italian, when she was working as a coat-check girl in a club in Saint Germain des Pres.
In his early teens, Slimane spent summer vacations with an uncle (his mother’s younger brother) who lived in Geneva and had a great influence on him . It was where he was first introduced to Fashion and luxury within an artistic and bohemian environment. Slimane’s mother also had a significant influence. She worked as a seamstress when she came from Italy to Paris, in the early ’60s. Her uncle was a tailor, and her aunt taught her how to sew and cut without pattern. She used to take him around as a kid to buy fabrics. While making clothes was something that always surrounded him young Slimane did not care much for it, until he turned 16 and started to feel the need to design his own clothes.
Slimane was always interested in journalism in hopes of becoming a reporter and photographer on international affairs. But despite his attempts in political sciences prep school, it never worked out and he ultimately, switched his focus to art history. After high school, he studied art for three years and then began helping friends on fashion shoots and shows, as a freelance art director and casting scout. In the early nineties, he spent a couple of penniless but fond years in New York, going to night clubs with Stephen Gan (who is now the creative director of Harper’s Bazaar and the editor of Visionaire).
After studying History of Art at the Ecole du Louvre, One day, doing fittings for a friend’s fashion show, Slimane was noticed by the LVMH fashion consultant and talent-trawler Jean-Jacques Picart, who on a hunch hired him as his assistant. Slimane began working with Picart (responsible for the success of Christian Lacroix, and Christophe Girard) in 1992 on an exhibition that celebrated the centenary of Louis Vuitton’s iconic monogram. Having been making his own clothes since the age of 16, he began there with small steps. Three years later, Pierre Berge, [the C.E.O. of Yves Saint Laurent, and Saint Laurent’s longtime companion] heard about Slimane, too and tapped him to be the menswear designer at Yves Saint Laurent, even though he had very little experience or training. After meeting Berge he was hired and worked on a little presentation of twenty looks set in an 18th century French salon. It was shown to only about five people, including Suzy Menkes, Carine Roitfeld, Hamish Bowles, Jim Moore from GQ, and Le Figaro editors.
After completing his work there in 1995 six months later, the then 27-year-old Slimane was named menswear director at Yves Saint Laurent in 1996, before being made the men’s artistic director the following year. But as speedily as Slimane progressed in rebuilding the men’s division into an indispensable one he left YSL. It so happened that in 1999, Saint Laurent was sold to Gucci and Tom Ford who became the creative director at Gucci, insisted that Slimane report to him. But reporting to Tom was not going to happen and while Berge objected to the arrangement, and although Ford offered Slimane his own line under the aegis of Gucci he resigned just three years later (after presenting the Black Tie collection for autumn/winter 2000-2001 in January 2000 – in which he introduced his new skinny silhouette).
When he left Y.S.L. in 2000, Slimane was invited by Klaus Biesenbach, the Founding Director of Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin to do a two-year residency at the Kunst-Werke Institute there. He declined the creative directorship at Jil Sander following the founder’s departure; and accepted a role at the helm of Christian Dior’s men’s line. When he went to Dior, the women’s line (guided, since 1996, by John Galliano) was its strength; the men’s line consisted basically of ties and socks sold in airport duty-free shops. Slimane redesigned the atelier, hired a new team, and sought to apply some of the couture division’s verve and craftsmanship. In 2001, he presented his first Dior collection, in Paris, a day after Ford showed his first for Y.S.L. When Saint Laurent himself, who had skipped Ford’s show, not only attended Slimane’s but led a standing ovation enthusiastically from the front row.
In June 2001, Slimane headed up the launch of Dior Homme’s first fragrance under his creative control named Higher. He designed the packaging and worked with Richard Avedon on the advertising campaign to ensure all elements tallied with his new vision for the Dior man. In 2002, Slimane became the first menswear designer to be named the CFDA International Designer of the year, presented by David Bowie. He associated with musicians including Mick Jagger, Jack White, The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and The Kills creating outfits for them to wear on stage, famously documenting British rock star Pete Doherty and the Berlin club scene. He also regularly commissioned young bands, particularly new British groups, to create original soundtracks for the Dior Homme catwalk shows. At Slimane’s birthday party in July 2005 Pete Doherty and other British bands including The Paddingtons and The Others performed.
After several years of expanding Dior’s men’s wear, In 2007, Slimane asked for his own label and was rebuked by Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, for demanding too much control. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his interest in photography and burned bridges with many of the people who had supported him at the start of his career. Looking back, in particular, the Dior years defined a very specific moment in his and pop culture’s history. In his own words Slimane conceived ‘a First Reform project at Dior in 2000’, and called it “Dior Homme.” He found this name to replace “Christian Dior Monsieur” which was a little old fashioned, and built an aesthetic around it for seven years. When he left Dior there was much talk suggesting that he wanted to start his own label and possibly move into women’s fashion. During his seven years at Dior Homme, he revolutionized the most stolid of all clothing categories, menswear, managed to instill a DNA in the brand that has remained long after his departure in 2007.
Slimane is also renowned for casting his runway shows and his ad campaigns himself. He takes every aspect of them lighting, casting, set design very seriously, but perhaps nothing, after the clothes themselves, is as important to him as the music. His runway shows are almost like rock concerts, with dramatic staging and songs that he commissions specifically for the occasion. Distinguished from most other designers by his practice of casting unknowns or nonprofessionals for his shows he is motivated by discovery, searching for new music, unspoiled talents, and the excitement of youth. Each of his runway shows has a distinct mood, but his designs can also be said to evolve from season to season rather than representing a complete 180-degree turn every six months. The representation is identical and consistent regardless of the season. In his words Slimane says he always designed or thought of a photograph with someone specific in mind and that he pursues the same character with a specific energy, creativity, individuality. He always looks for singular characters, a sense of reality, mostly strong personalities, sometimes melancholy, or when it comes to design, a certain personal style.
Soon after Dior, Slimane returned to an interest he pursued while growing up, Photography (his first love is actually photography though fashion followed shortly). He reinvented himself as a photographer and went on to shoot some of the most famous faces in contemporary culture: Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Brian Wilson, Gisele Bundchen, Robert De Niro and Kate Moss. Just like the strong vision he carries with his clothes, Slimane brings that same approach to photography. He excels at both and remains consistent at both. Leaving his signature on his collections and his photographs with his moody black-and-white hues and his skinny fit design that revolutionized menswear. And it’s not hard to see how he does it.
In 2011 Slimane’s name came back into the public domain when photographs of an all-grown-up Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love became an Internet sensation, In that same year he published ‘Anthology of a Decade’; a book in four volumes that acts as a diary of his photographic eye in black and white Portraits. It documented, the past ten years with a subtle and central focus, the psychological space of young men in the United States, Berlin, Russia and the United Kingdom, respectively, the four cities where he had spent most time.
In early 2012, Slimane was again linked with Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent both of whom were seeking a new creative director following the departures of Galliano and Stefano Pilati, respectively. In March 2012 Slimane succeeded Stefano Pilati at YSL. After being approached by the Kering group, around November 2011, following his photography show at the MOCA Museum in Los Angeles, Slimane formalized the new strategy and handed it to them which ended up quite precisely the project as we see it today.
Since his appointment, Slimane shook up the YSL brand taking it back to its origins and introducing a vision for Saint Laurent that has been so divisive among critics and retailers. Since his years at Dior, and starting with the “Glam rock” collection in 2005, Slimane started to doubt coordination and the conceptual formalism he was into for seven years. Slimane resumed his idea of the interpretation of grunge at Saint Laurent, starting with the men’s and women’s Grunge collections, balancing the sense of hyperrealism at Saint Laurent with the perspective of the couture to come.
First, as part of his makeover for the label he changed the name of Yves Saint Laurent to Saint Laurent, using the same font and nomenclature that the label’s eponymous founder first used when he launched his ready-to-wear line in 1966, then called Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. According to Slimane, the return to the original name would help him to recreate a legitimate and lost balance between the Fashion and leather accessories, besides keeping women’s and men’s fashion side by side. Those were the fundamentals that were needed to restore, together with the progressive allure and message of the Rive Gauche, which for him was always the true spirit of Yves and Pierre. Then, for the fall 2013 campaign titled “The Saint Laurent Music Project,” Slimane went on to cast rock stars like Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson to represent what was once the most revered fashion house in Paris, synonymous with Catherine Deneuve and Betty Catroux. The move was met with new uproar, from spats with critics. However, Love’s inclusion seemed inevitable, as critics across the board recognized her as the main inspiration for Slimane’s grunge-themed fall 2013 collection.
Stefano Pilati, who assumed the role in 2004 for the most part, was critically well-received. However, Slimane’s hiring left all that behind and while giving complete creative control to a renowned perfectionist was an expensive move, Kering surely anticipated that the investment in Slimane would ultimately pay off. With a predilection for silky blacks and whites, silhouettes that marked their era, and naturalness that emanates from images his first collection designed for women in spring 2013 re-imagined the Saint Laurent woman, harking back to late-sixties and early-seventies and carried a vintage allure. He also photographed and designed the cover of Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, launched a “permanent collection” that served as a baseline for Saint Laurent’s aesthetic and personally redesigned all the major Saint Laurent shops to capture the sensibility and aesthetic of distinct, cool and elegant layouts.
With a large social media following and a highly regarded photography site, Slimane spent the past three years restoring and redecorating the 17th-century Hotel de Senecterre along Rue de l’Universite. Built in 1685 by Thomas Gobert the building planner of Louis XIV the 2,100 sq. m site has a “geometric garden” and interiors which are adorned with furniture and art handpicked by Slimane from his private collection. Spread across three floors it houses Slimane’s ateliers, with the space split into three categories: Salon Couture, Atelier Flou (for dressmaking) and Atelier Tailleur (for tailoring). Having recomposed the traditional Couture Ateliers of the House, Slimane oversees the whole tailor-made production and will determine which of the pieces will carry the ateliers hand-sewn couture label ‘Yves Saint Laurent’ (Note the return of the “Yves,” which was dropped from the ready-to-wear line under Slimane’s direction in 2012). The couture pieces may be womenswear or menswear, a tuxedo or an evening dress, daywear or eveningwear and will only be available to close friends of the house.
In a statement, Saint Laurent revealed that not just any rich person can have a YSL Couture garment but only people Slimane approves can have one with the Ateliers producing commissioned hand-made pieces for stars and musicians. The ‘Yves Saint Laurent’ private atelier label will be made of ivory silk satin and is numbered by piece and a strict record of all the couture pieces will be kept in a gold monogram book. Slimane also shot a black-and-white ad campaign to feature the new haute couture pieces with the brand’s new mansion as the background featuring long, slinky, strapless black gowns with a fan of pleats at the throat and tuxedo suiting. Instead of showcasing the collection on the couture schedule it will be highlighted in a black-and-white ad campaign set to appear in magazines this month.
YSL’s couture resurgence is a bold move and is in the very DNA of the house founded by Saint Laurent. It’s an attempt to reinstate the made-to-measure business and one that Slimane always envisioned. By reserving the YSL branding it makes for a potential return with its originally abandoned “Yves” for the couture business and fulfills the brand’s DNA that has been missing since its namesake founder retired in 2002. Given its upward ambit having doubled its revenue over the past three years and with Brands making bespoke garments for celebrity clients part of their business (similar to what Ricardo Tisci does for Givenchy), the fashion powerhouse’s decision to produce artisanal collections that are even more exclusive than typical couture redefines exclusivity and is as sure napalm for success by becoming the next big thing in the world of high fashion couture.
It’s no exaggeration to say that, in three and a half years since he took over as the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, Slimane has completely shaken up the fashion industry with his quest to bring an extraordinary level of authenticity to his clothes. His tenure at Saint Laurent has been a complete success in terms of sales, influence, and acclaim. In the stores, Slimane’s Saint Laurent has undeniable hanger appeal. His highly personal, idiosyncratic flourishes have added up to booming sales. His supporters have hailed the way he has brought a revitalized allure and skyrocketing growth (revenues have doubled during his tenure and sales were up 27% for the second quarter of 2015) to the famous Paris fashion house. He has doubled the house’s turnover and sales show no sign of abating. It’s a rebranding success story. At least, as far as retail goes.
Change is the essence of fashion, and by redefining exclusivity Slimane is bringing back a breed of true couture clients that reassert the core values just as it was in the late designer’s heyday, a fitting tribute from Slimane to Yves. The power of Slimane’s fashion is in his youthful rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic and modernization of the brand. With an eye for detail his track record is impeccable thus far that upholds his standing as one of the most exalted menswear designers in the world. Slimane has successfully established his personal vision within the confines of the fashion world, becoming a celebrated fashion designer and he is here to stay.
This article appears in the 3rd issue of LoveFMD magazine (Fall/Winter 2015). The magazine is available on the Web at www.lovefmd.com as a digital issue (downloadable as a readable PDF or a print edition PDF), and is also available at leading digital stores Amazon Kindle, Yumpu, Issuu, and Scribd for free for anyone, anywhere.
