Hedi Slimane Talks Designing Again and Having No Intention of Being Miserable
His name has been brought up as a potential candidate for the House of Dior position left vacant by John Galliano's termination (and at the rumored-to-be-rocky YSL). But Hedi Slimane, the man who brought Dior Homme to glory from 2001 to 2007, seems content with his current life as a photographer ... or is he?
In an interview with the Guardian, Slimane admits to missing his designer days and to thoughts of jumping back in—but don’t count on him for the Dior job.
"I really love to design, but when it's a big luxury house there is so much things around the design,” he said. “Like the global branding, like the window displays. Oh, it's so much. You just have to be happy doing it. If you're not, you're really miserable. And I have no intention to be miserable. I miss the fabrics and I miss the atelier. But if I really miss it that much, I would have started again already."
Filling his time these days are a soon-to-be-published book, Hedi Slimane: Anthology of a Decade, as well as a group art show currently in Brussels and consistent photography work for the likes of Vogue and VMan.
His status as a celebrated fashion designer, he insists, is a bit of a fluke. "It's just like if I would have done cooking in my house and then I ended up as a cook in a restaurant, then I opened a restaurant randomly," he said. "I do it if it's fun. If it's not fun I give up and do something else."
Then again, he ends the interview with a bit of a tease: "I have a lot of my old stuff," he said of his current wardrobe. "That's why maybe I have to start designing again. 'Cos I have not so much to wear any more."
A Slimane spokesperson, however, has since told FashionEtc that the Guardian article is misleading, and that the interview took place prior to the John Galliano incident in Paris. “The interview was clearly done one day before the event in Paris, and not after. It is therefore unrelated, and sadly presumptuous. The Guardian wanted obviously to associate, juxtapose the two, after Dior's events, postponing the article.”
The rep went on to say, “Hedi Slimane obviously never talked about, or even implied Christian Dior, or any other luxury house in particular.” Slimane’s point on global branding was that it was a necessary part of design; he wasn’t in fact faulting houses for making it so.
The Guardian has not yet commented on this statement.
