After 25 years as a designer, Hedi Slimane has built up a wealthy discography of menswear: a back catalogue that continues to influence progressive masculine dressing today. Ever since Pierre Bergé named him as creative director of menswear at Rive Gauche Homme at Yves Saint Laurent (because it was then known) back in 1997, Slimane has used fashion as a tool to create a specifically distinct type of masculine portraiture. What makes it so distinct is a mix of his chosen conceptual lens, music, plus the filter of androgyny that inflected his street photography a few years before his fashion profession began. His fashion dialect crystalized when, during his time at Dior Homme within the early 2000s, he had moved from Paris to Berlin and begun observing the subcultures that so compel him there. He later moved to London during Camden’s second wave of peak indie rumpus, which further inflected that Dior period.

By the point Slimane returned to Saint Laurent (as it will then be known) between 2012 and 2016 he had followed his reportorial urge to Los Angeles. Shortly before exiting the home for a second time in 2016 he said to L’Uomo Vogue of his work: “You retain doing what you usually did with authenticity, determination, and dedication no matter forgery and imitation. Those things all the time find yourself getting sorted out, a technique or one other. You own it, it’s your trademark, there’s, besides a record for it.”

Last night in Paris Slimane prolonged that record along with his latest collection for Celine, the home he joined in 2018. The show was held on the Palais de Tokyo, more recently a venue inextricably related to Rick Owens, but in addition one previously explored in fashion by Slimane. In January 2002 he presented the Dior Homme (because it was then known) fall 2002 ‘Reflexion’ show here. Back then Slimane’s specially commissioned soundtrack was by the French electronica outfit Ready Made FC, while this season it was Recent York’s new-new wave band Gustaf.

Back in 2002, Bernard Arnault, Bergé, and Karl Lagerfeld were on Slimane’s front row. Last night, sadly, only Arnault—who in line with those sitting near him took photos of just about every look—was present to see Slimane’s return to the venue. Also in attendance were Lisa from Blackpink and V from BTS, whose fans followed them in droves. The gathering they saw encapsulated Slimane’s ongoing exploration of the brand new wave, with the sub-genres he nodded to spanning all three city-defined stages of lifetime world tour. In 2002 Slimane observed: “I’m all the time considering that something will come along to destroy whatever credo I actually have.” 20 years later, he continues to maintain the religion.

BY LUKE LEITCH
VOGUE
June 27, 2022