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, inventive 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 trend 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 have interaction 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 possibility to get to know one another. I had by no means met Hedi earlier than, however he had a fame of being reclusive and shy. I had been an admirer lengthy earlier than I labored in trend, from the time when he took the trade by storm at Dior Homme between 2000 and 2007. This was a possibility to fulfill one in all trend’s greatest and most elusive stars, the person who popularised the massively influential and extensively copied skinny silhouette, an aesthetic which he stays dedicated to up till at the moment.
At Dior, Hedi constructed a loyal fan following — often known as the “Slimaniacs” — that’s uncommon for a clothier. Even Karl Lagerfeld famously shed his weight so he might match into Hedi’s slim Dior Homme fits. One in every of my most treasured wardrobe gadgets from that period is a fantastically minimize 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 folks like me and in addition for a legion of feminine followers who needed the Hedi look: the last word in haute bourgeois Parisian stylish.
After years of carrying this coat, the wool is fraying a bit, however it’s nonetheless in good situation. I’ll by no means throw it away. At any time when I put on it, I really feel sturdy and assured.
Hedi and I didn’t know one another once we met that evening in Los Angeles, however we had a little bit of historical past. 5 years after Hedi stunned 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 crew, who took a heavy-handed strategy to regulate the narrative round Hedi’s rebranding of the historic home. In consequence, each the revered trend critic Cathy Horyn and I had been banned from his first Saint Laurent present. Hedi went on to remodel Saint Laurent right into a billion-dollar enterprise for Kering.
However all of that gave the impression to be prior to now. To be invited to have dinner with Hedi was an olive department, and a possibility to get to know a designer I actually admired. Over Caesar salad, beef brisket and post-dinner espresso and chamomile tea, we acquired to know one another as human beings. All through our dialog, Hedi was compelling, curious and interesting. We didn’t speak a lot about trend, per se. We talked about life in Los Angeles, about current work BoF had performed on matters associated to gender identification and incapacity, about browsing and Donald Trump.
Because it was off the document, I can’t share a lot right here, however suffice to say he had numerous questions and so did I. Earlier than we knew it, two and half hours had handed. I left with fairly a special impression of Hedi Slimane from the way in which he was portrayed within the media. I’m positive he’s a difficult boss, and that his exacting requirements could be exhausting, however it’s these similar qualities which have contributed to his plain success.
Hedi hasn’t performed 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 pictures, however he follows nobody and hasn’t posted something since July 2023. The peerlessly architected Celine Instagram account has 7 million followers; it additionally follows nobody. Neither account has feedback enabled.
When a designer doesn’t speak, folks 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 folks 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 trend 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 have interaction with followers and prospects on-line. Simon is tremendous participating 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 associate Marco introduced into the world, exhibiting their names written on hospital tags in all-caps on their tiny lovable wrists. On the time of writing, that one publish 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 folks, he created his personal social media moments this week. Jonathan is probably higher than every other designer to find a technique to stability high-fashion aesthetics with approachable advertising communications embedded in modern tradition. He has a knack for creating recognisable trend 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 beloved the content material he shared that includes “I Instructed Ya” emblazoned on all of the movie’s stars, together with an enthralling video of Tommy Hackett taking part in frisbee carrying an “I Instructed Ya” t-shirt “now obtainable in chosen shops and on Loewe.com.” When Jonathan does this, by some means 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 have interaction with folks.
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Being a designer and artistic individual in trend is exhausting, and comes with fixed scrutiny about one’s work with a cacophony of nameless folks passing judgement in your collections, your advert campaigns and the way in which you current your self. I can perceive why some designers don’t wish to interact in that approach, as it will possibly turn out to be distracting — and poisonous — to consistently handle a web-based persona, to repeat the identical solutions to the identical questions on the place your inspiration comes from again and again, and to must 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 strategy to communications will not be a fantastic match for the way in which the style world is shifting: real-time, digital, uncooked and open.
I’ll by no means cease carrying my Dior Homme coat, although. Hedi’s look by no means goes out of fashion.
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 carrying the model’s signature underwear, it set the web ablaze. Social media feeds flooded with response movies and media shops coated the marketing campaign extensively. The next week, Calvin Klein noticed a 30 p.c year-over-year improve in underwear gross sales.
Whereas the model might 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 things it might 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 minimize via the noise to create these sorts of cultural moments.
On Monday, BoF can be dropping our latest case research which examines seize shopper consideration whether or not you could have Calvin Klein’s price range or not. Keep tuned for that.
Have a fantastic 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 trend, luxurious and wonder:
1. The Prada Exception: How the Development-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 trend’s so-called “quiet luxurious” second, customers 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 trend corporations to stop senior executives from strolling off with commerce secrets and techniques, however have turn out to be a typical retention software.
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 study 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 might result in his exit, sources say. BoF breaks down what Slimane delivered to Celine and what his departure might 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.
