Hedi Slimane - Designer

[Lola701]

She left out another possible scenario, which is that Hedi could still be bound by a non-compete agreement with LVMH. His departure from Celine was announced in October 2024 under rather unknown details as to when and especially WHY?
If there's still a non-compete Armani had to deny all rumors, obviously.

She could be totally off, but I think where there’s smoke, there could be fire.

As for L’Oréal, they should be thrilled to have a creative director like Hedi involved in a brand whose beauty license they hold and they should actually listen to what he has to say. He has an excellent track record in fragrance: he played a key role in the successful launch of Dior’s La Collection Privée and later oversaw the entire fragrance line at Celine. That line has performed commercially very well and the perfumes themselves are genuinely good, especially considering how quickly they were developed. There was nothing particularly original in terms of product or presentation, but everything was executed to perfection as one would expect from a control freak like Hedi.

L’Oréal has been moving further into the niche and upscale segment rather than focusing solely on the mass market, so there’s real opportunity in beauty too, even for an already well-developed, but slightly down-marketed brand like Armani.

I guess it's mostly wishful thinking on my part but I'm always somehow rooting for Hedi, despite his flaws and ego....and I think Armani would benefit from someone who can oversee it all and structure the business with all those separate lines in a way that makes more sense too.

This is in part the problem with L’Oreal and all those big groups.
Maybe now that the MB sons are having more weight in the company it may change but it can be an issue particularly for the launch of big flagship fragrances.

In the fragrance world for big groups, commercial performance is more important than having a cohesive line.

We saw it with YSL. When Tom Ford took over, he launched very ambitious and interesting fragrances like Nu, M7 or Cinema. Those fragrances were very great. Some were quite edgy like M7. And it was cohesive. When L’Oreal took over, they killed everything. Under Stefano, YSL launched L’Homme and ELLE. The former was a success and so L’Oreal pushed it when they bought YSL beauté but they killed ELLE (which was a bit tapageur) and decided to run the beauté entity like a marketing operation.

When you work in a fully integrated company like Chanel, the only brief the parfumeur would receive is probably: We need a new Gourmand. We need a fragrance for a younger clientele. The creator has Carte Blanche and has at heart to be coherent to his body of work or at Chanel, to the legacy of his father.

When you have an entity run by the marketing team or people who only thinks in marketing, it becomes: Bleu de Chanel is the best sellling menswear fragrance in the world or Tobaco Vanille has created an insane buzz, we need to compete against it. Therefore you end up with clones.

Bois d’Argent and the whole Collection Privée were almost a slow burn but the real success of Hedi at Dior was really Dior Homme.

But yes, a Hedi or any CD is actually an enemy for the people in the marketing teams who are creating fragrances out of the risks others are taking.

 

[PDFSD]

Not so much that Hedi needs anyone to root for him. Just that he’s the only single talent working today that straightup designs, produces and offers garments and branding that’s quintessentially, effortlessly modern and timeless— rare qualities in these dire fastfashion times. The brand Giorgio Armani needs him more than he needs them. I’d much prefer he start his own label.

Frankly, I suspect the only obstacle in the way is that they’re insisting he take A/X along with Giorgio Armani. And that’s understandably a dealbreaker for anyone. Then again, Haider took Canada Goose alongside Tom Ford— surely Hedi can be the better man and do it too???

i would never see Hedi follow or be compared to HA the only thing they have in common is the letter H lol

i see A/X as a problem to close down they own it since 2014 for 100%
Since 2021, A|X operates globally through all distribution channels with a network composed of 2,850 sales points around the world, of which 347 are single-brand.
thats alot of sales points omg !!!!

 

[PDFSD]

This is in part the problem with L’Oreal and all those big groups.
Maybe now that the MB sons are having more weight in the company it may change but it can be an issue particularly for the launch of big flagship fragrances.

In the fragrance world for big groups, commercial performance is more important than having a cohesive line.

We saw it with YSL. When Tom Ford took over, he launched very ambitious and interesting fragrances like Nu, M7 or Cinema. Those fragrances were very great. Some were quite edgy like M7. And it was cohesive. When L’Oreal took over, they killed everything. Under Stefano, YSL launched L’Homme and ELLE. The former was a success and so L’Oreal pushed it when they bought YSL beauté but they killed ELLE (which was a bit tapageur) and decided to run the beauté entity like a marketing operation.

When you work in a fully integrated company like Chanel, the only brief the parfumeur would receive is probably: We need a new Gourmand. We need a fragrance for a younger clientele. The creator has Carte Blanche and has at heart to be coherent to his body of work or at Chanel, to the legacy of his father.

When you have an entity run by the marketing team or people who only thinks in marketing, it becomes: Bleu de Chanel is the best sellling menswear fragrance in the world or Tobaco Vanille has created an insane buzz, we need to compete against it. Therefore you end up with clones.

Bois d’Argent and the whole Collection Privée were almost a slow burn but the real success of Hedi at Dior was really Dior Homme.

But yes, a Hedi or any CD is actually an enemy for the people in the marketing teams who are creating fragrances out of the risks others are taking.

what susana analyst also wrote this below :

These are screenshots of what is YSL Beauty website managed by L’Oreal, full of discounts and offers and tiktokers.





With Slimane at the helm this could never happen.

her words:-)

 

[Grets]

i would never see Hedi follow or be compared to HA the only thing they have in common is the letter H lol

i see A/X as a problem to close down they own it since 2014 for 100%
Since 2021, A|X operates globally through all distribution channels with a network composed of 2,850 sales points around the world, of which 347 are single-brand.
thats alot of sales points omg !!!!

They both share Cathy Horyn being quite critical of their work.

 

[PDFSD]

They both share Cathy Horyn being quite critical of their work.

i did not notice HA via Cathy Horyn need to look it up then if its TF era now i will read it old HA i even if his JPG was one of the good ones to me he is fake sharp modern ...to be truly modern you should know when to release /let go as well and his onenote is rigor ala mugler without the insects lol

 

[Caffeine]

This is in part the problem with L’Oreal and all those big groups.
Maybe now that the MB sons are having more weight in the company it may change but it can be an issue particularly for the launch of big flagship fragrances.

In the fragrance world for big groups, commercial performance is more important than having a cohesive line.

We saw it with YSL. When Tom Ford took over, he launched very ambitious and interesting fragrances like Nu, M7 or Cinema. Those fragrances were very great. Some were quite edgy like M7. And it was cohesive. When L’Oreal took over, they killed everything. Under Stefano, YSL launched L’Homme and ELLE. The former was a success and so L’Oreal pushed it when they bought YSL beauté but they killed ELLE (which was a bit tapageur) and decided to run the beauté entity like a marketing operation.

When you work in a fully integrated company like Chanel, the only brief the parfumeur would receive is probably: We need a new Gourmand. We need a fragrance for a younger clientele. The creator has Carte Blanche and has at heart to be coherent to his body of work or at Chanel, to the legacy of his father.

When you have an entity run by the marketing team or people who only thinks in marketing, it becomes: Bleu de Chanel is the best sellling menswear fragrance in the world or Tobaco Vanille has created an insane buzz, we need to compete against it. Therefore you end up with clones.

Bois d’Argent and the whole Collection Privée were almost a slow burn but the real success of Hedi at Dior was really Dior Homme.

But yes, a Hedi or any CD is actually an enemy for the people in the marketing teams who are creating fragrances out of the risks others are taking.

I wish there was a lightbulb emoji here because what you wrote was very enlightening.

 

[Lola701]

what susana analyst also wrote this below :

These are screenshots of what is YSL Beauty website managed by L’Oreal, full of discounts and offers and tiktokers.



With Slimane at the helm this could never happen.

her words:-)

Not even Hedi but anybody!
I’m convinced that the Armani website is similar. Maybe less vulgar when it comes to fragrances because they have less flankers…

I’m sure Vaccarello is as embarrassed by Libre and Myslf as Hedi was with Black Opium!

That’s why after all I still respect people at Chanel and Hermes. They are not discontinuing fragrances any other day, they aren’t using grossières marketing tactics to sell their beauty products…And if so, never on their website or stores. There are enough Sephora, Marionnaud or department stores and duty free for that.

 

[hamburgers]

^ Sounds like a whole lot of backtracking to save face.

To be fair a lot of these rumors are true at the time of posting, it's just that they're developing stories that can change. I mean we had an entire Oscar de la Renta collection openly guest designed with Galliano and they still ended up with Peter Copping instead.

Back in the middle of his SLP tenure, Hedi bought a building in NY and gut renovated it and added an atelier space as if he was going to stay at the brand doing his American vintage thing but he still ended up leaving the brand and country going uber French at Celine so there's still a small possibility his real estate purchase in Milan may not develop into anything.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/65-Irving-Pl_New-York_NY_10003_M35599-01010

 

[fruitdots]

I agree with this; but the point is that Giorgio was a disaster when choosing prints and mixing colours too...so Hedi could fit in! 😅

Hahahahahaha ok, point taken. When he was bad he was atrocious, yet he wasn't afraid of colour or print, and I do associate him with that boldness, which often paid off. Look at his Spring 1999 show—there's a progression from austere greys and pastels to a sequence of jewel-tones and neons (and then back into grey and pastel patterns). It's gorgeous and so precise in its economy. I can't see Hedi managing anything similar.

 

[style_expert]

agree but L’Oréal like easy and mass money look at their profile of luxury brands even prada and miu miu is verry for everybody.

Totally, and they’ll want to keep the mass market as their main revenue driver, even though they did try to buy Byredo (and didn’t succeed), acquired Aesop (not exactly luxury, but still different from their usual licenses), and are now investing in Amouage. They’re clearly trying to diversify more, as they likely should in their position.

Mass perfumes is of course 99% marketing, and I do think that in terms of visual presentation, packaging, and campaigns, Hedi would need to adjust to the realities of the mass market demands compared to his Celine or even Dior’s Collection Privée. On the other hand, it would be a waste for L’Oréal not to involve his input in Armani beauty and fragrances.
The actual fragrances Hedi proposed at Dior and Celine (using different and in the case of Celine 'mysterious' perfumers) were not that 'difficult' to appreciate and could easily be translated into even more commercial fragrances.

As Lola said, his Dior Homme fragrance was probably his most commercial one, and despite the terrible reformulations Dior has done since, it’s still going strong.

Considering the horrors happening at YSL Beauty, I can totally understand why Hedi would require full control over Armani including the L'Oreal licensing which he’ll probably never get.

All of this is of course purely hypothetical

 

[susseinmcswanny]

If Armani wanted to continue on his business post death then I guess why tf not put Hedi up in there who cares. The only thing I DON'T want to see is anymore of these style fashion show videos

source: tenor