And so the worst-kept secret in fashion has been confirmed: Hedi Slimane, creative and image director of Yves Saint Laurent, has left the brand. Given the strength of the rumours of his departure that have been circulating since January, this may go down as the most anticlimactic fashion announcement ever made.
But despite the fact that it was issued on April Fools’ Day (a coincidence that probably escaped no one), the news has serious implications. Slimane is the fourth designer at a major fashion house to recently leave his post after less than five years. In July, Alexander Wang left Balenciaga after three years; in October, Raf Simons left Christian Dior after the same amount of time; and in February, Stefano Pilati left Zegna. Slimane has been at the helm of YSL since 2012.
He indubitably accomplished a lot in that time, transforming the brand’s financial fortunes (it is now the fastest-growing line in the luxury portfolio of its parent company, Kering) as well as its reputation, and he created a model of an all-powerful aesthetic mastermind that has since been adopted by Alessandro Michele at Gucci and has become the dream of many designers. But the idea that the brand’s transformation is complete, as the news release suggests (to be specific, the statement characterised Slimane’s stay as “a four-year mission, which has led to the complete repositioning of the brand”), and can simply be handed over to another designer, is a troubling one.
Yet this seems to have become the conventional wisdom of the industry. Gildo Zegna, chief executive of Ermenegildo Zegna, said something very similar when Pilati left: “We wanted to develop a strong point of view in fashion, and for Zegna to be a show not to be missed in Milan. We have reached this objective faster than expected.” On to the next! At a lunch to start Milan Fashion Week in February, I sat next to Francois-Henri Pinault, chief executive of Kering, and asked him about such abbreviated relationships, as one does when faced with that kind of opportunity. He shrugged and said, “That is the normal life cycle of modern luxury.”
Let’s hope that isn’t true.
Fashion has been infected by the contemporary disease of short-termism. And by “fashion” I mean not only executives on the corporate side, who in public companies think in reporting quarters, but also the design side, which is not exempt here.
There is a tendency in fashion to blame corporate “moneymen” for the evils of a system that is crushing the poor creative flower of a designer, wringing all the invention out of him or her, but it is increasingly clear that that is an antiquated idea.
Simons left; he was not forced out. Slimane, with his insistence on total control and refusal to live in Paris, instead remaining in Los Angeles and making the brand come to him, is no one’s idea of a pushover. The talk surrounding his contract negotiations centred on speculation about what he wanted (more money), not what he was being required to do.
The relationship horizon line on both sides seems to be shrinking. Indeed, in multiple conversations I have had with fashion chief executives since all this began, the refrain I keep hearing when I ask them why they don’t give designers longer contracts — five years, seven years — is that designers won’t sign them; that they want the freedom to renegotiate (or leave). You can understand it, to a certain extent: If they increase sales at a brand to a meaningful level, they want their salaries to reflect the success. One executive told me that designers he spoke to would be happy to sign one-year contracts if they could.
But creating an image for a brand and truly embedding it in the life of a consumer takes investment not just in renovation but in the relationship — between brand and individual, and designer and brand. After all, the products themselves require investment. They are not cheap. Consumers have to believe they will hold their meaning over time. And the meaning is created by the designer.
Modern luxury theory has it that the brand has to be greater than any individual, but we should not forget that brands are given their personality and their depth by the people who make them. They aren’t caretakers; they are content creators (and not in the social media meaning of the word). Comme des Garcons is Comme des Garcons because of Rei Kawakubo; Chanel because of Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld; Ralph Lauren because of Ralph Lauren. You know what they stand for, and you can buy into that value system or use it to telegraph your own.
But if the value system changes, and changes very dramatically, as it did at YSL under Slimane, it: a) takes a while for the world to adjust (remember the initial shock! horror! at his grunge grrls on the runway in season two); and b) can give consumers whiplash if it then segues into something else entirely.
As to what that might lie ahead, at least for YSL, rumours are centred on Anthony Vaccarello, a young Belgian-Italian designer whose last show was very 1980s rocker — in part because it doesn’t seem a huge departure from the Slimane aesthetic, though it is more aggressively sexy and less holistic. Kering said it would make an announcement “in due course.”
Slimane has been, characteristically, silent about his plans. There was talk he might go to Dior, which is still searching for a designer, but it is even more likely he will segue into the art world. His creative universe has always seemed more like performance art than simply clothing.
This week, two new ad campaigns, shot by Slimane, were promoted by YSL: one featuring Jane Birkin in a smoking suit, and one featuring Cara Delevingne in looks from Slimane’s last show. There will be a bridge period where, at least from the outside, everything will look very much the same. And it’s hard to imagine that given the cost of Slimane’s reinvention, which extended beyond the runway to stores, furniture for the stores, and a new hotel particulier in Paris, Kering would be prepared to do the same for whoever comes next.
Ideally, that person would stay longer than three years. But a certain precedent has been set. The unsettling prospect of a fashion world of free agents, more than any single look, may be the legacy of Slimane. It’s a dangerous one.
