Fashion Inspiration: Hedi Slimane, A Look at the Designer’s Career So Far

Talking about favourite fashion designers with a friend the other day, and we remembered the famous story about Karl Lagerfeld when he decided to lose weight (and he did—almost 41kg) because he wanted to be able to wear Hedi Slimane’s designs—those razor-thin suits of the early 2000s.

From The Guardian: “I suddenly wanted to wear clothes designed by Hedi Slimane,” he said, referring to the Dior Homme designer whose suiting is notoriously made in tiny sizes. Lagerfeld stuck to his diet—no sugar, cheese or bread, around 10 cans of Diet Coke a day.”

Hedi Slimane was born in 1968 in Paris’s 19th arrondissement to an Italian mother and a Tunisian father. He began experimenting with photography at only 11 years of age, learning to develop black-and-white film. He also started to make his own clothes, before attending L’École du Louvre where he studied art history, and by the time he was 28, Pierre Bergé, CEO at Yves Saint Laurent, selected him as the menswear designer for the house. The year was 1996. Slimane’s most influential work for Yves Saint Laurent came in Fall/Winter 2000: the collection was named “Black and Tie” and featured the designer’s signature “super-skinny silhouette, which sharply contrasted the soft, baggy fit of the time.” (CR Fashion Book)

In 2000, Slimane left YSL and joined Christian Dior. On January 28, 2001, he staged his first official vision of his signature aesthetic at the Galerie de Botanique in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, effectively reintroducing Dior Homme as a new brand and setting the rules for the way men should dress. (Vogue)

In 2002, Slimane became the first menswear designer to be named the CFDA International Designer of the year, presented by Slimane fan David Bowie. Slimane soon became associated with musicians—including Mick Jagger, Jack White, The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and The Kills—creating outfits for them to wear on stage. He also commissioned young bands, particularly new British groups, to create original soundtracks for the Dior Homme catwalk shows. (Vogue)

Slimane returned to the fashion world in March 2012, as creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, and the first big decision he made was to drop the “Yves” from the house’s name; a decision that created a lot of controversy and endless criticism. The designer continued with his skinny silhouettes but, also introduced more commercial pieces and “by the end of his tenure, he grew the house’s revenue more than 20 percent each year, outperforming the overall market for luxury goods despite having a significantly smaller retail network.” (CR Fashion Book)

In 2018, Hedi Slimane also rebranded the house of Celine, (sans é), showing, in his first collection, similar ultra-thin silhouettes that he used to create for Saint Laurent, but with added seventies inspiration: bourgeois dressing with spectacular pleated checked skirts, ladylike blouses and expansive shoulder bags. (CR Fashion Book) These changes were not well received (especially here at TIG).

“But as hard as it is to swallow change (especially one as drastic and immediate as this one), it’s necessary for a brand’s survival and evolution.” (CR Fashion Book)

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