Hedi Slimane

Hedi Slimane has been the creative director of Saint Laurent since 2012, after holding this position for Dior Homme from 2000 to 2007.  

Slimane first had dreams of becoming a journalist, as he states in the recent interview he had with Yahoo Style: "I grew up with the intention to become a reporter."

His interest for photography started when the designer was aged 11. The same year he discovered photography, he had his first camera and learned black and white darkroom printing.

He started making his own clothes at 16 years old and studied Art History at l'École du Louvre.

In 1996, after Pierre Bergé gave Slimane the position of ready-to-wear director of men's collections at Yves Saint Laurent, the young designer became the artistic director of the line. The Fall Winter 2000/2001 YSL collection will be the last one with Slimane as the creative director, as he moved to Berlin right after. There, he published his first book of photography, Berlin, a selection of black and white photographs.

After that, Slimane chose to accept the position of creative director at Dior Homme, where he introduced his signature - the skinny menswear silhouette - he believes to be related to his childhood. He indeed admitted being bullied as a kid because of his skinny figure. Music comforted him since he was able to relate to what soon became his music heroes - David Bowie, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Mick Jones, Paul Weller and more. "They looked the same and I wanted to do everything to be like them, and not hide myself in baggy clothes to avoid negative comments.", confessed the designer. That explains why Slimane's collection are closely tied to the music scene.

In April 2002, Hedi Slimane was the first menswear designer to receive the CFDA award for International Designer. David Bowie, whom Slimane dressed for his tours, presented the designer with the award.

Slimane left Dior in 2007 to focus on photographic projects, before being appointed creative director of Yves Saint Laurent in 2012. He chose to rebrand the name of the brand as Saint Laurent in order to distiguish it from the traditional Yves Saint Laurent, and the design studio was partially relocated to LA, that has been the designer's home for almost eight years now.