Inside Paris Fashion—Hedi Slimane - French fashion designer - Brief Article - Interview

Interview, Oct, 2001

INGRID SISCHY: Hedi, in your mind, is Paris a place which has fashion in its blood?

HEDI SLIMANE: Oh, definitely. Fashion is definitely part of the culture.

IS: And--

HS: It became quite relevant again, recently.

IS: Why?

HS: There are probably many reasons. Suddenly there is more exchange with people who have been doing it for a while. And, also, there's a new generation of designers. But this relevancy isn't only true of fashion. It started in the music scene, and then went through contemporary art to fashion. I don't think you can separate what is happening in one from the other anymore. I think everything artistically new started emerging about two years ago. There was a moment when a few new people started to have some say, and everything started to change. People in their thirties were suddenly getting important positions. I don't know quite why, but it happened at the same time in every single field.

IS: A new generation suddenly made its presence felt?

HS: Yes. Also, it became possible for these new people to build bridges between different creative fields. It was really very difficult to interact with people in different creative fields--but then, a couple of years ago, connections or new nets formed between these new people. Networks of people, especially creative people, started to create a whole new idea of Paris.

IS: It's not the old idea of Paris?

HS: Oh, no, absolutely not! Everything that happens is a reaction, so I suppose these new ideas were a way of subverting the sort of heavy, institutional feelings that you usually got from Paris. You know, that totally depressed ...

IS: The cliche in fashion used to be that one would go to New York fashion to see marketing, and one would go to Milan fashion also to see business, and then you'd go for the creativity to Paris. But it wasn't necessarily true. For instance, at a certain point in the '90s you could go to Paris and feel an insufferable weight of the past and the smugness of institutionalism.

HS: Totally.

IS: A lot of that seems to have lifted. What do you think it was that finally exploded things? Apart from the drives of business?

HS: This is a cliche, but this cliche is not so untrue about Paris. I suppose that maybe there is a moment in fashion where people get jaded from a certain old way of doing things, without thought or any original idea. And that's when the idea of fantasy that we were expecting from fashion entered the picture and suddenly there was this movement in fashion to go back to a certain sense of fantasy and creativity. Meanwhile, the new generation thinks in much more conceptual ways than before. And they have certainly integrated the business side of the job into things, except they don't start with it. Everything starts with an idea, and that idea is to subvert this bourgeois, Parisian feeling that we constantly deal with and that's so heavy.

IS: When we look at an amazing photograph of, let's say, Saint Laurent in the '70s, or Karl Lagerfeld, and they're hanging out with Andy Warhol, it feels historic, like a moment from a momentous time. Do you think we're in another moment like that?

HS: It's very early to say, but I suppose it could be a very good moment in different creative fields. I think there is a new Parisian way of life that's really different from-

IS:--from all the cliches.

HS: Yes, you can go also on the wild side in Paris and it's certainly this side that is very very interesting today. The economic situation really helped, too. It is similar to the time when Saint Laurent started, and Andy Warhol was on the scene, when it was this whole glamorous period. In Paris now, everybody really wants to go out again. Things had been so depressed before.

IS: [laughs] Hedi, close your eyes and tell me your favorite thing to do in Paris. If it was Sunday morning, where would you take me?

HS: Hmmm. [laughs] Sunday's not a good day.

IS: OK. How about Thursday night?

HS: Well, I would definitely take you to the 13th arrondissement, where the galleries are. What is good in Paris is that you can go from a very traditional Paris, like the Ritz, to a certain new Paris.

IS: One night when I was last in Paris, we went to Georges at the top of the Centre Pompidou. Looking out at Paris, I felt like I was in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. What attracts you about going there?

HS: Well, when Georges opened it sort of catalyzed this new idea of Paris. Paris is a bit like New York. Everything changes quickly. It's like a jigsaw. All the pieces suddenly come together. You also have the sense of a new fascination with Paris from the outside. And that's really really fabulous. I cannot go into a restaurant or club in New York without hearing Air or Daft Punk or French electronic music.

IS: Why do you think?

HS: Maybe it's a new romanticism. I think there is a certain emotion in the music that maybe you will not find elsewhere. There is something else we haven't spoken about, but that's really important. It's really corny to talk about elegance, but Paris is catalyzing a return of a certain allure, a certain chic. It's not glamour, because glamour is much more, um ...