Hedi Slimane tends to stay pretty low-key when it comes to press. I mean, the two don't necessarily have the best relationship. So, naturally, he doesn't do many interviews, but Yahoo Style commissioned former Style Dot Com EIC Dirk Standen to interview the Saint Laurent saint who has doubled the company's revenue in the three short years he's been with the house. If you've read a Dirk interview before, like the Kanye one from fashion week, you know it's fully worth reading. Most of it centers on SLP's re-introduction of couture, but I'd still encourage you to buckle in and read this shit from front-to-back. However, if you're still lazy and don't want to learn anything, here are some takeaways.
Slimane is known for some of his "reforms" within the brands he leads and he lays out how he's done that with SLP:
The reform project at Saint Laurent was done and written mainly for my team to understand what I had in mind for the house. ... I had to find a new sartorial factory to produce an exclusive tailoring for the house, nothing industrial, the pure tradition in tailoring. The hand of leather accessories was heavy and had for instance to be changed in order to have a French feel. Millions of production details needed to be reviewed and corrected in order to get the right level of quality and branding, the perfect perception of what the House should produce under the Saint Laurent name. In terms of image, the entire packaging and brand identity was reformed, together with the design of an entirely new website. The first week at Saint Laurent I also designed a completely new concept for the Saint Laurent stores, a concept I keep fine-tuning according to the evolution of the house and my perception of the moment.
How about the now legendary name change?
Historically, Yves decided with Pierre [Berge] in 1966 to name his revolutionary ready-to-wear “Saint Laurent Rive Gauche." Yves wanted a clear dichotomy with his couture, and chose Helvetica font for the new label. ... Almost fifty years after, the necessity was for me to transpose this idea, Yves’ freedom, this age of innocence. ... I believe the restoration of the name “Saint Laurent” was the only right thing to do, despite the irrational reactions surrounding my first year, ironically a blessing in disguise that unexpectedly gave all the publicity that was needed for my project. Naturally, I couldn’t possibly imagine that going back to the historical and most respectful roots of Yves would create such a polemic.
Explaining the influence of the famous footwear he puts in his collections:
The shoes set up the tone and attitude, they change the perception of the way one wears clothes, what we call in France “Le porté.“ It is not about length, but the juxtaposition or “décalage” of the shoes (high or low) with the rest of the proportions. The shoes, together with the hair and a precise casting, give also an idea of the time we are living in.
What draws him to Los Angeles of all places?
Los Angeles has been my home for almost eight years now. I trust I cannot live anywhere else at this point. ... The city of Los Angeles was for me a perfect observatory of popular culture and inspiring sub-cultures. Not to talk about the Internet community, which transformed California, and exported its spirit and ingenuity. The shift of global creativity toward the Pacific might have happened over the last seven years. The influence of California is now at so many levels besides the entertainment industry. In fashion, the perception towards the city seems to have changed recently in a positive way.
His borrowing/re-using of his Dior Homme era work:
I constantly use my own vocabulary, and the sense of repetition of the same signs, and semiotic, the permanence of a silhouette, or proportions, and overall representation. I always believed in repetition, pursuing endlessly the same idea. You cannot own more than one identified style and you need to evolve within the same codes. I transform and borrow constantly from my past collections, what I believe to be making sense or relevant today.
And, finally, where did the signature skinny silhouette and youthful look come from?
I was precisely just like any of these guys I photograph, or that walk my shows. Jackets were always a little too big for me. Many in high school, or in my family, were attempting to make me feel I was half a man because I was lean, and not an athletic build. They were bullying me for some time, so that I might feel uncomfortable with myself, insinuating skinny was “queer.” There was certainly something homophobic and derogative about those remarks. I was eating quite much, doing a lot of sport, but when I was 15, 16, or 17, that was simply the way I was built. ... There is that idea of androgyny, which is associated to my silhouette and design since the late ‘90s, and I presume a reflection of how I was, and how I looked growing up, the lack of gender definition.
