French designer Hedi Slimane has been compared to Yves Saint Laurent himself for his remarkable ability to move separately from seasonal trends with his collections, instead finding and portraying his own voice and style each year. Perhaps this was the main reason behind the decision to make Slimane the leader of the YSL label’s revival in 2012. Since the label’s re-branding to Saint LaurentP Paris, Slimane has been behind every single show coming out of the collection. Over the past two or so years, SLP’s popularity with both celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Kanye West, and A$AP Rocky, as well as the internet fashion forum crowd has skyrocketed, mainly in the realm of menswear. Though wildly expensive, ordinary people with rent, bills, student loans, and other obligations still try to save up for the $2300 varsity jacket or the $1200 harness boots or the $1000 sweaters, or the most coveted and iconic of all; the $5500 double rider leather jacket. The effects of this are seen in the doubling of the French house’s profits since the hiring of Slimane and the 27% profit increase in 2014. Despite financial success, many critics still feel that Slimane’s time at Saint Laurent is similar to what he had done during his famous years at Dior Homme (2000 – 2007), which critics claim was the throwing out the traditions of the house to create his own aesthetic. Many further argue that Slimane’s collections at SLP are identical to his DH days, claiming he is unable to deviate from the same iteration of the same aesthetic.
I’m here to argue against this. Boom.
Hedi Slimane has always stated that he wishes to redefine masculinity with his clothes, explaining that with his clothes he creates heroes who do not embody traditional ideas of masculinity. At Dior Homme, Hedi Slimane was of course known for pushing forwards menswear with his cutting edge slim and rockstar look, but was a different flavor entirely than the rockstar look of Saint Laurent Paris. To illustrate this, I will compare the standout points and theme of Dior Homme AW07 “Navigate”, Slimane’s last Dior Homme show, to those of Saint Laurent Paris AW15, his most recent Saint Laurent menswear show.
W07 “Navigate” is one of my personal favorite Hedi Slimane collections, because it seems difficult to perfectly describe it with a single word other than “cool”. Set to the soundtrack of a song written specifically for Slimane and his show, “Navigate, Navigate” by British band These New Puritans, the show kicked off with the first skinny young rockstar of the evening wearing a draping black marble blazer with a silk shirt underneath that conceals the hands with its lengthy sleeves. On the bottom half were low-waisted, flowing dropcrotch pants above a pair of slick black combat boots. This carelessly flashy attire would set the mood for the rest of the show. Following him were more extended sleeves on coats, shirts, blazers, and sweaters, more buffed combat boots, more printed blazers, more dropcrotch pants, and a noticeable lack of biker jackets someone familiar with Slimane’s Saint Laurent work would be surprised by. There was a single leather jacket throughout the entire show, but it was not in the double rider style Saint Laurent fans will recognize. The traditionally feminine appearance of hand covering sleeves had been a constant sight throughout Slimane’s seven years at Dior Homme, but have yet to appear once in Saint Laurent’s shows. Furthermore, nothing even close to dropcrotch pants has ever been displayed during a Saint Laurent showing under Slimane. The styling of the show was almost intentionally careless. Belts and straps hung off and flapped with movement, pants slouched to one side, hair fell casually in models’ eyes. This is wildly different from the rigid tightness of Saint Laurent’s collections. A traditional Dior grey trenchcoat did appear, but in a slim form that fit comfortably in with the rest of the looks. The standout pieces of the show were a leather down-filled jacket and a glittering gold blazer modeled so casually it was a wonder whether the model was actually a rockstar who had decided to crash the runway. The show was silky, glittering, flashy, all while giving the vibe of not caring; the perfect embodiment of the word “cool”. This show and all of Hedi’s time at Dior Homme was a drastic, but much needed deviation from the more traditional menswear of Dior Homme’s past.
Now looking at Saint Laurent AW15, we get quite a different view. After a minute and a half of suspenseful droning instrumental, the show started with the ominous and minimalistic psych-rock song, “Me Suive” by French band La Femme. As mentioned before, the show was unlike the Dior Homme as it was rigid, tight, and more traditional in the style of most SLP shows. However, the collection still carried the rockstar attitude, just in a different way. Where “Navigate” said “I don’t care, I’m cool and I know it”, the Saint Laurent display cared in the way that says “I know I’m cool and you know I know you know it”. Tight, high-waisted black denim, a staple of the Hedi SLP brand, was the choice for pants on many of the models. Where they did not wear denim, they had equally tight leather pants. Cropped jackets and blazers with pristine, sharp folds seemed to stretch the legs and gave the signature Hedi Slimane proportions. Elegant coats, many adorned with animal patterns were left open and billowing to contrast with the heroin-chic skinniness on the rest of the silhouette. The trademark double rider biker jacket made several appearances as expected. There were none of the casually flung collars and flaps that appeared in “Navigate”; everything was precisely where it needed to be. On the foot of the models were high-heeled french boots in gleaming black leather, which stayed true to Slimane’s vision for redefining and challenging traditional masculinity, and when paired with Slimane’s very skinny jeans and cropped jackets gave a sense of androgyny to many of the silhouettes. It served as a reverse of Yves Saint Laurent’s famous “Le Smoking” pantsuit for women, giving the traits of femininity to men instead of the other way around. The confidence with which these challenging and forward-thinking looks were delivered made these clothes look at the very least cool, I imagine, to even the most disgruntled Slimane critic. The models moved with purpose, giving the cameras a disdainful half-second look, before turning and leaving the audience wanting more. The show was dark, confident, and sneering; a different kind of rockstar.
While similarities existed in the use of androgynous clothing and dark clothing contrasted with patterns, the tailoring, fit, style, and overall theme of the collections were unique. Though they were both cool and confident, this was presented in entirely different ways for each brand. Hedi Slimane undoubtedly has a unique style that he is able to express effectively and consistently, but he did not simply make the same clothes under a different name when going from Dior Homme to Saint Laurent Paris. Slimane implemented his own ideas and style in seperate ways that he felt were fitting for each brand considering their past.
