Our daily countdown to the latest issue of Wallpaper* is over. As the highly anticipated, three guest-edited copies hit the newsstands, we take in the work of the third guest editor - the multi-tasking, multi-disciplinary and skinny everything else - Hedi Slimane. Don't miss all three issues, edited by Jeff Koons, Dieter Rams and Hedi Slimane.
You only have to log on to Hedi Slimane's website to realise that the man is a multi-tasker of huge ambition, with a terrifying capacity to turn his hand to fashion design, photography, furniture design, graphics and even architecture and still come off, at the very least, a fresh talent. And much more often much more than that.
Any suspicion that Slimane, still just 39, is a dilettante dabbler are soon swept aside by the seriousness with which he approaches everything he does, his commitment to the task in hand, and more crucially the results. Because revolutionising the modern male wardrobe as artistic director of Dior Homme - a position he held for eight years - wasn't keeping him busy enough, he also took to designing store interiors: a dozen Dior Homme stores now feature his stunning, crystalline fixtures and fittings. He designed a range of furniture, exclusively available at Dover Street Market, and trailed the beautiful mess that is Pete Doherty around for over a year to capture the photographs collected in the book 'London: Birth of a Cult'.
Since leaving Dior earlier this year, Slimane has turned to curating - he studied Art History at the École du Louvre and, remarkably, has no formal fashion training - and his group show Sweet Bird of Youth is currently running in Berlin. Of course that doesn't get to the full range of his exploits and one can only wonder what the future holds for Hedi Slimane. And if that isn't upsetting enough, he is also, let it be said, a perfect gentleman.
Slimane's contribution to his edition of Wallpaper* is a set of 20 exquisitely designed 60cm x 40cm posters using his own distinctive photography and typography. In conversation with Wallpaper* and German artist Thomas Demand, he discusses his painful split with Dior, redefining masculinity and how he feels that he'll return to fashion one day. Using specialist printing inks, his cover is a radical reworking of a recent art installation.
Speaking of his guest editorship, Slimane says, 'I've never had the opportunity to work with Wallpaper* before, so this particular project was really appealing and exciting. Especially as it also involved Jeff Koons and Dieter Rams, whom I greatly admire. It was a really good place to develop a common project and start a collaboration.'
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