Hedi Slimane: Film Buff

Hedi Slimane’s first show as a photographer after he left his post as Creative Director of Dior Homme in 2007, was “Young American,” his series of portraits of young American artists including Dan Colen, Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow which debuted at FOAM, the Dutch photography museum, in Amsterdam. Since then, Slimane has persistantly  turned up at the crossroads of the visuals arts in his documentary and fashion photography, furniture design and installations. When he’s not doing excellent shoots for everyone from AnOther Magazine (it’s current covers with Natalie Portman and Vanessa Paradis) to the surprising color shoot of mullet-headed Paolo Anchisi for the 3rd issue of Vogue Hommes Japan, it turns out Hedi Slimane has been watching a lot of old movies.  If you had to sum up American youth in 11 iconic films which would you choose? For its collector’s package series, the French production/distribution company MK2 asked Slimane to art direct abox set of his favorites which include  the ecstasy and a lot of the agony of American adolescence from Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause to Last Days, Gus Van Sant’s fictional account of the final days of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. The set, which will be available around Christmas, is tied-in with a series of MK2 events which hopefully will include screenings of Hedi’s pertinent selection:  the 1969 Woodstock by Michael Wadleigh, Zabriskie
Point by Michaelangelo Antonioni, Scorsese’s first film Who’s That Knocking at my Door, Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation, Rumblefish by Francis Ford Coppola, Gus Van Sant’s first film Mala Noce, Kimberly Pierce’s Boy’s Don’t Cry, Larry Clark’s Wassup Rockers, and cult favorite Mysterious Skin by Greg Araki.