T Magazine: Hedi Slimane’s Friends and Collaborators Remember His Breakout Show
Ahead of the designer’s Celine debut, his inner circle reflects on how his first collection for Dior Homme forever changed men’s fashion.
Yves Saint Laurent and Hedi Slimane backstage at the fall 2001 Dior Homme show.Credit...Jean Luce Huré for the New York Times
On January 28, 2001, a rising Tunisian-Italian designer named Hedi Slimane showed his first collection for Dior Homme. Staged at the Galerie de Botanique in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the event effectively rebranded the fashion houses’s men’s line, and caused a seismic shift in the typically staid world of men’s fashion. At a time when baggy tailoring was the prevailing aesthetic in men’s wear, a relative newcomer made a case for a precisely crafted razor-slim silhouette. The Times’s fashion critic at the time, Cathy Horyn, singled it out as “the most anticipated show of the fall 2001 men’s season.” Tomorrow, some 17 years later, Slimane will make another buzzy debut, unveiling his first collection for Celine as the French brand’s artistic, creative and image director, a role created specifically for him. Since his arrival at Celine in January — where he took over from Phoebe Philo, who announced her departure last year — Slimane has been remaking the house in his own image. When the brand introduces men’s wear for the first time this season, with couture to follow next January, Slimane will showcase not only his sprawling powers of imagination but also what he is capable of when starting from a blank slate.
The fall 2001 Dior Homme collection epitomized the fastidious detail and dark sensuality that would become hallmarks of Slimane’s aesthetic. To the sounds of a melancholic track by the French musician Benjamin Diamond, Slimane sent out a mix of street-cast and professional models walking in a lightning-fast stride with their hair blown back as if by a wind. Trousers with sequins sewed inside pleats were paired with open-collared shirts unbuttoned to the navel, while exquisitely tailored suits came in luxurious, light-catching fabrics. Yves Saint Laurent, Slimane’s mentor — who sat in the front row with his business and life partner, Pierre Bergé — led a standing ovation at the end of the show.
In his seven years at Dior Homme, Slimane established himself as a provocateur, as well as one of the most influential men’s wear designers of the 21st century. He staged fashion shows that resembled stadium events, dressed extremely slim androgynous models in designs that referenced the subcultures that fascinated him (such as the electronic underground in Berlin and London’s indie scene) and redefining conventional notions of masculine beauty in the process. He would go on to become the creative director at Saint Laurent, from 2012 to 2016, where his singular vision would propel the brand beyond a billion euros in sales during the final year of his tenure. His roots, though, are to be found in his first collection for Dior Homme. Here, some of his friends and collaborators reflect on that breakout show.
James Kaliardos, makeup artist and co-founder of Visionaire magazine, who did the show’s makeup
I’ve known Hedi since we were teenagers. We met when we were all very young in Paris, before he was designing. He’s been a friend since. He always had a very clear and particular vision of how he saw everything — from how the office was designed to the art collaborations and even the sound system. It was almost like a design exercise: how to build a brand in a pure way, down to its essential elements. At Dior Homme, they really built a language of design. Each season reinforced what they were trying to communicate. It was seeing Dior in a new way — taking this old established house and showing something really graphic on men. Hedi redefined the male silhouette and changed how commercial clothing is cut and fit. Before him, there wasn’t a slim option or a tight armhole. So many things he brought in told this story of a new male.
His casting was always very interesting — this mix of street-cast and working models. Often it was the boy’s first time walking. There was this element of trying to corral kids who weren’t super professional. I always kept the boys very pure — their skin would be perfect. It wasn’t about doing a trendy look but about keeping the purity going with what was going on with the clothing. Hedi helped give youth culture this burst that at the time was missing. It was what all the kids wanted, but suddenly it was embraced by everyone.
Jimmy Paul, the show’s hairstylist
I was introduced to Hedi by James Kaliardos. We worked together at Saint Laurent for two seasons before Dior Homme. Working with Hedi was very sympathique; it seemed like we spoke the same language and liked the same things. The show was thrilling — it was a turn of the page. You felt the buzz because of the way the boys looked. To be able to realize the vision I had for the hair was an extraordinary experience. The clothes were at the level of French couture but for men — you could see the passion that goes into every little detail. It seemed like the entire Paris royalty had come to the show. I’d never seen anything like it: There was Karl Lagerfeld shooting backstage, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, Catherine Deneuve and Betty Catroux. It was a very rarefied air. It felt like the future of Paris. I don’t think I will ever see something like that again.
Thierry Dreyfus, head of Eyesight Group, who produced the show and designed the lighting
From the beginning of Dior, the emotional and aesthetic core of the brand was determined by colors and materials. Hedi’s aesthetic is who he is — coherent, sincere and visionary. Everything was thought-out and intentional. For his first show, he wanted nothing to be seen, nothing technical at all, and wanted the runway to be like a black asphalt street with the boys coming seemingly from nowhere, so I designed a tunnel for the models coming onto the runway. I brought the front camera lenses almost to the floor, which made the image of the models super thin and linear, and created a new proportion for the boys. Seeing the details of the collection was not the goal; but to stoke the desire of discovering the details of the clothes because of the emotion you felt during the show. The way I made the models walk in straight lines with several boys at the same time on the runway in a superfast rhythm — that personality, and the electric energy you experienced, made you wish to be like these young boys.
Jamie Del Moon, model who walked in the show
The first time I met Hedi was in Tokyo around 1999. He was there doing a men’s wear show for Saint Laurent. I had been modeling since ’98 and was already fairly established at that point. I had walked for Dior Haute Couture which was located right down the block from where Dior Homme was, on Avenue Montaigne. I can still remember the first time I went there for a fitting. Inside, the offices had been redesigned and painted in a light gray complete with its own mock runway. There was an air of strict professionalism that I had not encountered in any of my dealings with other clients at that point.
With the first show for Dior Homme, I remember being very impressed with the size of the production. It was practically on a stadium-rock level, with a massive sound system and lighting rigs. After the first show, I became an in-house fitting model and also did the showrooms that followed after each collection. One thing that really impressed me about Hedi was the time I showed up for my fitting for the second or third show with a cast on my left hand. I had been in an accident a week before and was being canceled left and right by other designers during show week because of it. Hedi took one look at it and said, “Accidents are a part of life,” and kept me in the show.
Benjamin Diamond, musician who created the track “Inner Cycle” for the show
I was aware of his work and was in contact with an agency who asked me if I wanted to meet Mr. Slimane. I had never made music for a runway show before, and I was really excited to do that, especially to create music in real time. While I had written all the parts of the show beforehand, as everything was always in movement, I was supposed to improvise if there was any trouble. There was one word he gave me as a brief for the show: “loneliness.”
Stephen Gan, editor in chief of V magazine and VMAN, co-founder of Visionaire
We were 18-year-old club kids when we met. We didn’t really have jobs, just dreams of working in the fashion business, and those dreams were not that defined either. When he first went to work at Saint Laurent in 1996 — that was out of the blue for me. He was a new kid on the block who was giving men’s wear a new cool and a certain refinement and sophistication.
There was a sense of anticipation around his first Dior Homme show because he had left Saint Laurent around the time the company was being taken over and gone to LVMH. Everyone was looking to see how he was going to translate this idea of a young modern guy’s elegance to a new label called Dior Homme. It wasn’t like anyone had a real picture in the back of their head of what Dior men’s wear was like — it was like starting from a blank slate. The fact that Mr. Saint Laurent was there and embraced him after the show in the presence of Bernard Arnault — it was a coming together of the different fashion tribes. You’d never get that now. Hedi’s work always had a personal touch — this idea of refinement about a beautifully tailored jacket over a pair of skinny ripped jeans. To Hedi, it is all about fit and silhouette and character. With his Celine show, I hope to see some really good tailoring — that’s been missing a lot from men’s wear. We’re in a sort of tracksuit moment with sportswear being bigger than ever. Selfishly, I feel like men need to look up to something once again — there’s got to be that perfection in men’s wear that’s missed.
