Hedi Slimane short interview(2004)

HEDI SLIMANE, DIOR HOMME DESIGNER

TIME: Do you have a "uniform"?

HEDI SLIMANE: I tend to naturally wear a black jacket, a white shirt and a pair of jeans. I have five dozen black jackets, mostly tuxedo jackets, and twice that number of shirts, but I'm afraid it always looks the same.

TIME:What is it about that look that appeals to you so much?

HEDI SLIMANE: I like tailoring a lot, and I am so used to wearing a jacket. It is like a protection or a second skin. I suppose the white shirt helps me focus. It doesn't say much but structure and clean lines.

TIME:Do those same principles drive your collections?

HEDI SLIMANE: I work with a set of rules, a system, that sometimes I try to subvert. But then it naturally all comes back to that sense of structure and lines, to a more minimal approach.
TIME:Will you ever move to New York City?

HEDI SLIMANE: I am thinking more and more about moving to New York and working in Paris. In a way, I feel more at ease in New York with my way of designing and working on concept.

TIME:Whose personal style do you most admire?

HEDI SLIMANE: It is hard for me to say because it is also a [person's] way of thinking that has elegance to it. I liked Samuel Beckett. [He had] a true elegance. I am really fond of music, and rock music in particular—Paul Weller [in] the Jam period, Bowie [in] the Thin White Duke period. But this is already somehow a "fashion" idea of style. Style has to do with lifestyle. It is a total idea, an almost religious idea.

From Time Magazine