cool kids never sleep
CHRISTOPHER AT HEDI’S HOUSE. CHRISTOPHER OWENS BEVERLY HILLS / LOS ANGELES MAY, 2011.
PHOTOGRAPHY HEDI SLIMANE LOVERS, CALIFORNIA YOUTH, SANTA ANA, CA, MARCH 23, 2014.
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SAM WITH SNAKE / 2 VENICE BEACH / LOS ANGELES OCTOBER 10, 2011.
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sonic youth
SANTA ANA, CA MARCH 22, 2014.
TEXT ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN
For Hedi Slimane, music makes the world go round. This September, he launches Sonic, the exhibition and book featuring fifteen years of the Saint Laurent designer’s music photography.
KURT’S MONKEYS KURT COBAIN MEMORABILIA LOS ANGELES JUNE 17, 2011.
Photography is to Hedi Slimane what art was to Yves Saint Laurent: fleeting moments of vibrant soul and creativity preserved in one entity forever. Since he first rebranded the house and a new Saint Laurent was born, Slimane has invited guests to his shows not with the customary calligraphy cardboard invitation but with an entire book of photography and artwork, reflecting the collection’s mood and the designer’s newest discoveries. Collectables in their own right, the books have become hot commodities among Saint Laurent’s ever-growing horde of fans, and they have no idea what’s about to hit them in Slimane’s womenswear show this season; come September 29, Sonic, published by Xavier Barral, will moonlight as show invitation – and fret not, it will be available for purchase too. Featuring fifteen years’ worth of photography from Slimane’s archives, the book documents the designer’s connection with music scenes from London to New York, and acts as a kind of year-by-year reference book to his men’s and womenswear collections, so intertwined with the musical underground and its legends. And because every bible needs an altar, the book coincides with an exhibition at La Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, showcasing selected works from the book. “I started photography during school at the age of eleven,” Slimane told i-D in an interview in 2011. The son of a seamstress, fashion was already in his blood, and photography became an early passion. Enthralled with the work of Alexander Rodchenko and Caspar David Friedrich, Slimane explored photography throughout his teenage years and discovered the craft’s parallels to fashion. “For years, until the early 90s I guess, I was experimenting with frames, obliques, or depth of field,” he continued. “As for the viewpoint in photography or fashion (which was always, for me, the consequence of my interest in photography), the ‘feel’ has stayed the same.” Like a 21st century counterpart to Andy Warhol’s silkscreen prints, Slimane’s stark but soulful portraits have become a phenomenon. With elements of gloom and grit, they’re confrontational and romanticising all at once, portraying his subjects with equal intensity and curiosity whether they’re relatively
JERRY LEE’S RANCH
unknown or the fathers of rock. Sonic includes a few of those, from Brian Wilson and Keith Richards to the late Lou Reed and Amy Winehouse. Above all,
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Slimane’s photography is about freeze-framing musical moments in time, and as he said in 2011, “the fragility and vulnerability of it all.” The exhibition isn’t Slimane’s first. In 2011, he presented California Song at MoCA in Los Angeles, depicting his first years in California since he relocated to the West Coast in 2007. A more comprehensive glimpse into the designer’s world and inspirations, Sonic features photography from Slimane’s European
JERRY LEE LEWIS MISSISSIPPI AUGUST 15, 2013.
era, prior to his Saint Laurent tenure, in addition to his work from America, offering an almost complete parallel scope of the designer’s fashion career. ysl.com hedislimane.com fondation-pb-ysl.net
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TAME IMPALA FANS, COACHELLA, CA APRIL, 2013.
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