Does Hedi Slimane ever take a vacation?
Since leaving Dior Homme last March after seven years at the helm, Slimane has been keeping busy with photography and book projects, and now, a show at Berlin’s Arndt & Partner gallery.
The show is titled “Sweet Bird of Youth”, inspired by the Tennessee Williams novel of the same name.
It’s a fitting name, really, considering Slimane’s well-documented preference for employing youthful male models on the runway (and on his website…).
For the exhibition, Slimane gathered 15 artists (some personal friends), to contribute original black and white pieces related to youth and the loss of youth.
In addition to Slimane himself, there’s also work by Terrence Koh, Matt Saunders, and Ryan McGinley.
In an interview for Dazed and Confused, Jefferson Hack asked Slimane about his apparent obsession with youth – and if he’d like to go back to his own.
Slimane says, “Not at all. I had the worst time ever at 16. I was totally autistic, and locked myself in my room. I felt I had a complex because I was skinny – people thought I was sick, and tried to feed me like a goose. It was quite tragic really.”
His adolescent angst doesn’t seem to be abating – even though he’s almost 40!
–ALLIE MERRIAM