“Nobody has achieved notoriety and relevance like Slimane with exclusively male designs”
– El País
Born in Paris in 1968, he studied art history at the Academy of Louvre. He is also a photographer and has always been linked to the world of music, enough to be the designer of groups like The Strokes or Babyshambles began working in the fashion world with brands like Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent (already in the year 1997), and so in 2000 Christian Dior opens its doors to become the creative director of Dior Homme.
Hedi Slimane managed to create a new aesthetic for man silhouettes by the use of skinny pants (trend already marked by Raf Simons, the new creative director of Calvin Klein) and some androgynous designs. They even say that Karl Lagerfeld lost 30 kilos to wear one of his designs. With his new creations, the designer revives for seven years a new trend in the predominantly black and white and the definition of the silhouette of men.
In 2007 the designer leaves Dior Homme to exploit his own designs out of the brand. Later, in 2012 he became creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, and with its entrance just renamed Saint Laurent. Its name changed to differentiate the brand in Haute Couture and ready-to-wear, and it was a way to relive the golden age of Saint Laurent in the 60s.
Recently, in April of this year, Slimane is replaced by Anthony Vacarrello. His departure is still very controversial after his last tweets posted on the social network because it is said that lash out against the Yves Saint Laurent brand and criticizing the absence of “Yves” during his leadership.
To this, the designer has defended several arguments, such as that during his legacy, bags still retained the “Y”, in the parade of 2015 threw confetti with the three initials of the famous logo and even create a line jewelry with more than 100 charms in which “YSL” was included.
And now is added the dispute that has the designer with the brand, a dispute which reaches 13 million dollars. The debt comes from the beginning of Slimane in the brand, in which the non-competition clause is not signed: this clause prevents you from working for a year with strong competition, and at the time seemed right to Hedi. Now the designer and photographer has sued them because he wants to sign the clause and remain during one more year Yves Saint Laurent receiving the same salary he would receive if he were really working for the firm.
The gossips say that is one of the candidates to replace Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel. But we would have to wait one more year (or more). What would happend? Only time will tell us.