So who is Hedi Slimane? With the opening of Saint Laurent’s new flagship at Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, the first in the region to carry the brand’s new store concept, designed entirely by Slimane, the question is as pertinent as ever.
Famously involved, Slimane has taken control of almost every facet of the company since he became creative director of Saint Laurent in 2012 – from the clothes, accessories and branding to packaging and the soundtracks to his runway shows. He even shoots the haute couture advertising campaign himself. He is the man who, in four short years, has single-handedly doubled profits at Saint Laurent, and transformed this once stuffy French fashion house into the label to watch. But the fashion establishment remains polarised about his achievements at Saint Laurent. Love him or hate him, Slimane is a man who forces an opinion.
The new store concept is trademark Slimane. Much like his clothes, it is stark, sleek and monochromatic. Unadorned to the point of Zen, it is so pared back that it becomes a sophisticated dialogue about surface play – shiny versus matte; light versus dark; soft versus hard.
In 1955, a young Yves Saint Laurent was hired by Christian Dior on the strength of just three sketches. Likewise, Slimane was plucked out of relative obscurity in 1996 – the year Saint Laurent announced his retirement from ready-to-wear in order to focus exclusively on haute couture. In his first-ever design role, Slimane became head of menswear at Yves Saint Laurent.
In 2000, Slimane presented his Black Tie collection, introducing a new skinny silhouette for men. Shortly after, however, he left Yves Saint Laurent for an artist’s residency at Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. He returned to Paris as creative director for Dior Homme, bringing with him the super-fitted look he started at Yves Saint Laurent, sending impossibly skinny boys wearing spray-on suits down the runway to the sound of custom-created rock music.
It was a revelation. Clothes were not so much tailored to the body as carved around it. Trousers were skintight, torsos were hugged – and customers snapped it up. Suddenly, underground hip was high culture, and skinny jeans were high art.
When Slimane returned to Yves Saint Laurent in 2012, one of his first acts was to distance himself from its famed founder by dropping the Yves from the brand name, which was henceforth to be known as Saint Laurent. It was a clear mark in the sand, the beginning of a new era. He also uprooted the design studio from Paris to Los Angeles, his home since 2007, arguing that it made more sense than constantly commuting between the two cities.
And now, he has turned his back on Paris once more, pulling out of Paris Fashion Week last month and choosing instead to show his autumn/winter 2016 men’s collection and “Part 1” of his autumn/winter 2016 women’s collection at the Palladium in Los Angeles on February 10.
The autumn/winter 2016 presentation took place one day before the start of men’s fashion week in New York and a few days before the Grammys, so while LA may not be known as a cutting-edge centre of fashion, it did mean that eyes were very firmly trained on the city. Why be one of the crowd in Paris, when you can steal the show in LA?
For his show, when it came, was spectacular. It was a music-driven homage to David Bowie and the glam excess of the 1970s, with the late music icon’s trademark look of sharp suit under wide-brim hat running throughout the show. Girls were swathed in lurex dresses under bomber jackets, and leopard-print dresses under red velvet capes, complete with heavy black or gold eye make-up. Boys hid under hats, dark glasses and Ramones-style fringes, wearing cowboy shirts under zebra-print tuxedo jackets, and skinny scarves over black satin shirts. The collection was fearless and unashamedly youthful. Rich, shimmering and fabulous, it was arguably Slimane’s greatest show to date.
In another bold move, Slimane reintroduced haute couture at Saint Laurent last year, an act steeped in significance. When Yves quit ready-to-wear in 1996, it was to focus on haute couture, but he shut down the salon in 2002, when he became too ill to continue. At the time, he famously thanked François-Henri Pinault, chief executive of Saint Laurent’s parent company, Kering (then PPR), for “believing as I do that this house’s couture must stop with my departure”. Slimane has no such qualms – and has vouched to create something “beyond exclusive”.
Customers will be carefully vetted – as ever, Slimane will be firmly in control of who is worthy of being touched by his creative genius, and who is not.
Look out for this and similar stories in Luxury magazine, out with The National on Thursday, March 3.
smaisey@thenational.ae
