LONDON — Again in March 2018, I sat down with Hedi Slimane in Los Angeles for a personal dinner, simply two months after he was appointed artistic, creative and picture director of Celine. After I arrived at Craig’s in West Hollywood, Hedi was already there, wearing his signature skinny tailoring.
This week on BoF, Robert Williams reported that he could also be leaving Celine, now the third largest vogue model at LVMH with round €2.5 billion in income, and revealed that one of many sticking factors within the “thorny contract negotiations” has been about Hedi’s want for management round communication and his lack of willingness to interact with the style media. These traits can conflict with the calls for of the job of a artistic director, which more and more requires a degree of openness Hedi has by no means been snug with.
Our rendezvous in Los Angeles was not for a proper interview, simply a chance to get to know one another. I had by no means met Hedi earlier than, however he had a status of being reclusive and shy. I had been an admirer lengthy earlier than I labored in vogue, from the time when he took the trade by storm at Dior Homme between 2000 and 2007. This was a chance to fulfill one in every of vogue’s greatest and most elusive stars, the person who popularised the vastly influential and extensively copied skinny silhouette, an aesthetic which he stays dedicated to up till in the present day.
At Dior, Hedi constructed a loyal fan following — generally known as the “Slimaniacs” — that’s uncommon for a clothier. Even Karl Lagerfeld famously shed his weight so he may match into Hedi’s slim Dior Homme fits. One in all my most treasured wardrobe gadgets from that period is a fantastically reduce stone gray peacoat which I purchased from Browns on South Molton Avenue in London. That they had a particular choice of gadgets in petites tailles, made for small individuals like me and in addition for a legion of feminine followers who wished the Hedi look: the final word in haute bourgeois Parisian stylish.
After years of sporting this coat, the wool is fraying a bit, however it’s nonetheless in good situation. I’ll by no means throw it away. Each time I put on it, I really feel sturdy and assured.
Hedi and I didn’t know one another after we met that evening in Los Angeles, however we had a little bit of historical past. 5 years after Hedi shocked the style world and left Dior Homme, he grew to become artistic and picture director of Yves Saint Laurent. I had a run-in with the Saint Laurent PR workforce, who took a heavy-handed method to manage the narrative round Hedi’s rebranding of the historic home. Because of this, each the revered vogue critic Cathy Horyn and I have been banned from his first Saint Laurent present. Hedi went on to rework Saint Laurent right into a billion-dollar enterprise for Kering.
However all of that gave the impression to be previously. To be invited to have dinner with Hedi was an olive department, and a chance to get to know a designer I actually admired. Over Caesar salad, beef brisket and post-dinner espresso and chamomile tea, we received to know one another as human beings. All through our dialog, Hedi was compelling, curious and fascinating. We didn’t speak a lot about vogue, per se. We talked about life in Los Angeles, about latest work BoF had carried out on matters associated to gender identification and incapacity, about browsing and Donald Trump.
Because it was off the file, I can’t share a lot right here, however suffice to say he had plenty of questions and so did I. Earlier than we knew it, two and half hours had handed. I left with fairly a unique impression of Hedi Slimane from the best way he was portrayed within the media. I’m certain he’s a difficult boss, and that his exacting requirements will be exhausting, however it’s these identical qualities which have contributed to his simple success.
Hedi hasn’t carried out an interview in ages, since BoF contributor Laurence Benaim interviewed him for Le Figaro in 2018. He does have an Instagram account with 371 thousand followers that includes his all black and white images, however he follows nobody and hasn’t posted something since July 2023. The superbly architected Celine Instagram account has 7 million followers; it additionally follows nobody. Neither account has feedback enabled.
When a designer doesn’t speak, individuals fill that vacuum with hypothesis and hearsay, and in some methods that may do them a disservice. It hasn’t prevented Hedi from being wildly profitable, nevertheless it has prevented individuals from attending to know him in an age when authenticity and transparency are prized attributes, and might even be the engine for enterprise success. For higher or worse, consumer-facing vogue reveals, social media and cultural advertising that reaches a various, world viewers have turn out to be a part of a artistic director’s job. None of those have been a precedence for Hedi.
Designers like Simon Porte Jacquemus and Jonathan Anderson have constructed sizable companies on their means to interact with followers and clients on-line. Simon is tremendous partaking in individual, and he has a web based character to match. This week, he shared a photograph of the twins named Mia and Solar that he and his accomplice Marco introduced into the world, exhibiting their names written on hospital tags in all-caps on their tiny cute wrists. On the time of writing, that one submit has acquired 738,000 likes on Instagram. You don’t see engagement like that for nearly any clothier.
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As for Jonathan, one other one of many trade’s most celebrated designers, who earlier this month was named to the Time 100 listing of the world’s most influential individuals, he created his personal social media moments this week. Jonathan is probably higher than another designer find a method to stability high-fashion aesthetics with approachable advertising communications embedded in modern tradition. He has a knack for creating recognisable vogue gadgets utilizing on a regular basis moments.
Most tradition watchers won’t have missed the avalanche of protection and dialog about his flip at costume design for Zendaya’s new movie, “Challengers,” out this weekend. I cherished the content material he shared that includes “I Informed Ya” emblazoned on all of the movie’s stars, together with a captivating video of Tommy Hackett enjoying frisbee sporting an “I Informed Ya” t-shirt “now out there in chosen shops and on Loewe.com.” When Jonathan does this, one way or the other it doesn’t really feel like crass advertising, and although he isn’t essentially opening up about his private life, he’s at all times discovering methods to interact with individuals.
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Being a designer and artistic individual in vogue is exhausting, and comes with fixed scrutiny about one’s work with a cacophony of nameless individuals passing judgement in your collections, your advert campaigns and the best way you current your self. I can perceive why some designers don’t wish to have interaction in that approach, as it may well turn out to be distracting — and poisonous — to continuously handle a web based persona, to repeat the identical solutions to the identical questions on the place your inspiration comes from time and again, and to need to endure the digital chaos, all whereas churning out concept after concept, product after product and marketing campaign after marketing campaign.
It’s nonetheless not sure that Hedi is leaving Celine, however his departure could be an enormous loss for LVMH. There’s little doubt he’s an arch perfectionist, and his execution (together with this week’s fragrance launch and marketing campaign) are at all times impeccable. However his perfectionism and his method to communications usually are not an excellent match for the best way the style world is transferring: real-time, digital, uncooked and open.
I’ll by no means cease sporting my Dior Homme coat, although. Hedi’s look by no means goes out of favor.
This Weekend on The BoF Podcast
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On January 4th of this yr, when Calvin Klein dropped its new spring 2024 marketing campaign with a shirtless Jeremy Allen White sporting the model’s signature underwear, it set the web ablaze. Social media feeds flooded with response movies and media shops lined the marketing campaign extensively. The next week, Calvin Klein noticed a 30 % year-over-year enhance in underwear gross sales.
Whereas the model may by no means have predicted the big response the marketing campaign would generate, Calvin Klein’s chief advertising officer Jonathan Bottomley says the model did all the pieces it may to place the technique in place to ensure that it to take action.
This week on The BoF Podcast, I’m happy to share a dialog with Jonathan from our BoF Skilled Summit in New York, the place he unpacked Calvin Klein’s advertising technique and the way they reduce by the noise to create these sorts of cultural moments.
On Monday, BoF will probably be dropping our latest case research which examines the right way to seize client consideration whether or not you may have Calvin Klein’s price range or not. Keep tuned for that.
Have an excellent weekend!
Imran Amed, Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, The Enterprise of Trend
Plus, listed here are my different prime picks from our evaluation on vogue, luxurious and sweetness:
1. The Prada Exception: How the Pattern-Setting Group Bucked Luxurious’s Uneven Slowdown. This week, Prada and Miu Miu reported sturdy gross sales as LVMH slowed and Kering retreated sharply. In vogue’s so-called “quiet luxurious” second, shoppers might care much less about whether or not merchandise have logos and extra about what these logos stand for.
2. The Rise and Fall of Noncompete Clauses, Defined. A US regulator has banned most makes use of of the clauses, which began as a approach for vogue corporations to forestall senior executives from strolling off with commerce secrets and techniques, however have turn out to be a regular retention device.
3. How Rising Manufacturers Can Construct DTC Companies. In London, the place impartial labels have been hit exhausting by the implosion of key stockist Matches, manufacturers like Clio Peppiatt, Marfa Stance and Completedworks have grown direct-to-consumer companies that friends can be taught from.
4. Can Celine Work With out Hedi Slimane? After rising the model’s annual gross sales to just about €2.5 billion, the star designer has been locked in a thorny contract negotiation with proprietor LVMH that would result in his exit, sources say. BoF breaks down what Slimane delivered to Celine and what his departure may imply.
5. How Trend Entrepreneurs Are Surviving Crises in South Africa. Resourceful leaders are turning to artistic contingency plans within the face of a nationwide power disaster, crumbling infrastructure, financial stagnation and social unrest.
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Disclosure: LVMH is a part of a bunch of traders who, collectively, maintain a minority curiosity in The Enterprise of Trend. All traders have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s full editorial independence.