PHOTOAUTOMAT

All photographs belong to Hedi Slimane via his website. All Rights Reserved ®

Hedi Slimane. Born in Paris in 1968 from a Tunisian father and an Italian mother (dress maker), discover photography when he got his first camera at 11. Five years later he started making his own clothes -inherit trade from mom maybe- later he went to the École du Louvre and studied Art History. Organically he become involved in the fashion world, evolving and creating amazing pieces and changing menswear making it darker, more exciting and all together more rock.

I got to know him for his super contrasted Black & White online photos, a few years ago. Later I learned that he was taking a break from a very successful career as Artistic Director of Dior Homme, a fact that was described by Fashion Wire Daily (2007) this way: “Slimane leaves Dior with the well-earned reputation as the single most influential men’s designer this century, the most copied of his peers and the only one to achieve the status of a rock star.” You can read about this here and here.

 

Before abandoning the fashion world in 2007, in that hiatus from Yves Saint Laurent in early 2000 he moved to Berlin and started a residency at Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, where he fell in love with photography again and started publishing books.

In his website you can loose yourself browsing the endless gallery of young musicians, models, artists and actors. Consistently with his inclination towards menswear his photos of guys are more frequent and very intimate. 

Men stand out and are deeply moving in an unusual way while being photographed in soft, ethereal,  almost too feminine poses, while remaining manly and sexy. Women are also sexy but strong, is a powerful combination of ambiguity and modernity with no space for cliches.

All photographs belong to Hedi Slimane via his website. All Rights Reserved ®

Go ahead take a walk in Hedi Slimane's world, and read Austin Considine's wonderful piece about him in The New Yorker: A Fashion Designer's Second Act.

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The PhotoAutomat section is edited by the Brooklyn-based photographer Andreína Restrepo.    

 

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

 

 'From Petersburg With Love' by Colta Photographer - Alexei Tikhonov & Producer - Olga Shilyaeva (http://www.colta.ru/docs/5839)


In response to Russia's horrific anti-gay laws, Dazed Magazine, has been publishing a series of articles, this is the latest one. Find out about Russia's first LGBT school, The Moscow Experimental School for Gender Studies, which opened on August 2 ready to fight back Putin's anti-homosexual propaganda introducing tabu subjects as queer art, pornography, sex work, feminism to the contemporary Russian society.  Read full article here.

 Photo: Screenshot of 'Defined Lines' video.

A feminist parody of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” created by a bunch of University of Auckland law students was briefly removed from YouTube earlier this week. Olivia Lubbock, one of the creators of the "Defined Lines" speaking of the YouTube ban, said: “It’s been flagged by users as inappropriate because of sexual content and stuff like that, but the fact it’s been taken down is a massive double standard". Read full article in The Independent.

  

Photo: Hedi Slimane via Dazed Digital

A less controversial video is Hedi Slimane's first film for Saint Laurent ballerina line. "Trick or Treat" the soundtrack of the film is composed and performed by LA-based Clementine Creevy from Cherry Glazeer.  The model Lida Fox is captured dancing in classic black and white but in a open new york style loft  wearing leather and flannel. Fresh air is being blown by Slimane into the Saint Laurent brand and the concept of a ballerina while, as Dazed point out 'Cali grunge becomes timeless'. Have a look at the video here.

"The fact that people doesn’t read poetry, does not mean they don’t need it." It means a lot to discover the poetic/subversive work of a Mexican writer through Lost at E Minor, a Sydney, Newcastle, Austin (TX) based blog. It means that his words, his walls and his idea had travel and keeps traveling around the world. If you speak Spanish you will enjoy this Ted x Ibero presentation of Armando Alanis and his Acción Poética. Have a look here.