A Hedi of His Time

Enigmatic French fashion designer Hedi Slimane is about to change jobs again. Here's what he thought of his first one back in 1999.

In this issue:

• A previously unpublished interview with Hedi Slimane

• Children’s Climate Championship celebrates Fashion Revolution Day

• French luxury leaders’ first quarter revenue numbers are in and 🙀

This week, Hedi Slimane, fashion’s most enigmatic designer, reportedly told his bosses at Celine, the French luxury house owned by LVMH, that he was not going to renew his contract, which expires in June. Gossip in Paris is that Slimane may head to Chanel, which I imagine is news to Chanel’s current creative director Virginie Viard, who was Karl Lagerfeld’s longtime assistant before replacing him upon his death in 2019.

Hedi Slimane

Twenty-five years ago, Slimane got his big break in fashion when Yves Saint Laurent chief executive Pierre Bergé, who I profiled back then for the New York Times, hired him to design the brand’s Rive Gauche menswear line. At the time, I was a reporter at Newsweek, and I went to the Saint Laurent headquarters at 5, avenue Marceau to interview this new, unknown designer. I never did anything with the notes—my editors thought Slimane was too unknown. With the news this week of his impending departure from Celine, I decided to go down in my cave and dig the notebook out of the filing cabinet. What I found is like a lost treasure.