Christian Dior's Boys Don't Cry
(But They Do Wear Great Clothes)
By: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Paris, Jul 2, 2001/ FWD/ --- The Hedi Slimane career maintained its course to the stratosphere with a
slick, focused collection of men's fashion Monday before the most high-powered front run of the Paris
season.
Few things please a designer more than an imprimatur from his more distinguished peers, and Hedi
came up trumps - in attendance were Karl Lagerfeld, Jeremy Scott and Rei Kawakubo.
Joining them were
LVMH luxury tsar and Dior owner Bernard Arnault, actress/singer Jane Birkin and Hedi's old boss
Pierre Berge.
Entitled "Boys Don't Cry," the collection was a rich investigation into the limits of modern male dressing.
Androgynous? "That's not a word I like. It was about what men can do and what they can't," Slimane
explained to FWD, as he shyly received compliments backstage.
Slimane's silhouette remains slim, but nonetheless considerably looser - and more wearable - than
his previous collections for Dior or Yves Saint Laurent.
His look was sportily Japanese - with sleeveless
kimonos or karate jackets, but in leather. Again, he softened outfits with leather strings, but kept
them street-tough with punky laced-up boots.
Hedi's palette was surprisingly bright, given the universal black and white of his debut show for Dior
in January.
Under a giant white ceiling dripping with glass tears and before a back wall of bright red, Hedi served up
canary yellows, flashy turquoises and bold oranges.
Perhaps responding to criticism that his clothes were
simply too tight for most men, the models strode out for Hedi's finale in loose nylon cargo pants,
showing the tops of their underwear.
One chap even dropped his pants in front of the exit as the lush techno music rose to a crescendo.
His best idea was a series of shirts with big cuffs and arty strips of accordion pleats - which will prove
the item of the season.
However, these shirts, which more than one woman in the audience referred to as
"blouses," again raised the question, will Slimane design a woman's collection for Dior?
Again chic ladies
wearing Slimane were sprinkled throughout the audience, like Amanda Harlech, who looked sensational in a
black tuxedo pantsuit by Hedi.
Dior executives look positively pained when one asks them about a Dior woman's collection by Slimane.
But after every show by this brilliant young designer, the numbers of people convinced that this is in
the pipeline grows by leaps and bounds.
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