We are back here talking about Hedi Slimane. Not a particular collection, but all of his work. It is by viewing it in this way as an area of study that needs to be explored that we can find the coordinates for understanding the discontinuity of some of the most enduring trends of the last twenty years. After joining Saint Laurent, he deals only with the men’s line, for Berger he could lead the entire Maison, but Gucci acquires him, and the differences with Tom Ford are irreconcilable. Leave, go to Dior and found the line man; when he returned to Rive Gauche in 2012, he was given absolute creative direction. Between these three stages in brackets was the work of the photographer in the USA, London and Berlin. What he was looking for were the emotions of the glorious decade, the seventies glam rock; follows the underground scene between Detroit and Los Angeles, between Berghain and Babyshambles concerts. In his frames, he condensed the anomalies of a generation that we do not know how to place in time, because by birth there are a few X and a few millennials in it, but spiritually it is much older.
These nights are reflected in every garment designed by Slimane; it is a school, and his successor, Anthony Vaccarello, repeats the lesson, perfecting it in his own way. Before them, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Gianni Versace and Marc Jacobs wrote the grammar on which the entire language is built. In addition to repetitive stylistic elements, from light that even the darkest fabric cannot hold and refracts between sequins and rhinestones, to chromatic accents that open their way like lightning on jackets, shirts, trousers and accessories, now in the form of brushstrokes, the color blocks, then feathers, the silhouette is always in the center.
A figure who carries with him the free and debauched heritage of the flower children revolution, sexually liberated and very often undeclared. Male and female are no longer dominant characters; rather accidents along the way, they can be flattened or exaggerated as needed: on a base that ideally calls for extreme thinness and leggy build, the rest is added. Just think of the faces of glam rock, Marc Bolan of T. Rex, David Bowie of the Ziggy Stardust era, Roxy Music and Iggy Pop of the early days and Freddie Mercury; each of them combines excessive stylistic sophistication and a pronounced sexual charge, as if they sublimated the experience of the previous one. rock’n’roll to guide them towards future disco music. What did these musicians want? Why was there so much audacity in their notes and in the way they were presented, including, and above all, visual?
The decade that the costume remembers as being covered in sequins alternated between some of the worst political and social crises of the twentieth century; music, cinema and fashion have set themselves the task of leading the masses to flight. In this case, also from a body that preceded the unisex and the current asexual. From this perspective, glam rock is still able to speak to us and provide food for thought, as well as incredible wonders from the catwalk and stage. Pierpaolo Piccioli used them for the Valentino collection when he dyed them fuchsia and made his models climb dizzying platforms, the same ones Donatella Versace wore while waiting for Barbie; it was on the vinyl of Raf Simons’ latest collection, the glorious swan song, which at Prada focuses on other, more hands-on research; he temporarily removed us from reality with Alessandro Michele and his followers freaks by Gucci – New glam rock icon Harry Styles has closed his live shows after more than two years Love on tour and the doors of the wardrobe, created especially for him by the former creative director: ostrich boas, polka dots, jumpsuits, cascades of all kinds of shiny merchandise, gussets and stilts.
Inevitably, and again, it’s in Celine, where today our Hedi Slimane likes to mix it with grunge, as if to find the perfect way out of a room that is definitely crowded by now. Maybe it’s time to turn the page.