VIBE Exclusive! Grimes x Hedi Slimane (YSL) Capsule Collection
The two most progressive names in music and fashion have banded together for a unique collaboration. The enigmatic songstress Grimes was recently commissioned by Hedi Slimane, creative director of the reincarnated Saint Laurent Paris (formerly YSL) to create a capsule collection that will be released in tandem with the Saint Laurent 2013 spring/summer menswear collection next month. The collection, 5 pieces in total, that Grimes (whose real name is Claire Boucher) repurposed her original art work for were inspired by Yves Saint Laurent's original 'love poster' series from the 70's.
We caught up with Grimes who has been deep in the Canadian wilderness to share details of this unique partnership.
VIBE: When did you first meet Hedi? Tell us about it.
Grimes: We met on the dazed & confused magazine cover shoot and it was immediately awesome because he was just totally different from any photographer I'd ever worked with. He was really smart and intense and we got along really well. It wasn't about a 'beauty' shot per se, it was about making the best art possible. And thats the stuff that I find really meaningful in the fashion industry.
How familiar were you with Hedi as a designer?
I was actually way more aware of him as a photographer and as a person who was involved in cultural stuff like all the london punk stuff etc. Plus I knew he invented the faux-hawk. I've never paid a ton of attention to menswear until recently.
When was the first conversation about collaborating on a capsule collection? Did Hedi have the idea for the t-shirts in mind?
Ya, It was his idea. It was associated with the love posters that YSL had made in the past because that was brought up as a good possible inspiration.
Did you design these drawings specifically for the collection or were they previous works that were repurposed?
I did some drawings for a spread in vogue japan that he was shooting, one or two of them are drawings that I sent him were for the japanese editorial, but the rest are all original specifically for this. The deadline was super tight so I was doing them in hotel rooms between shows and in the tour bus lol.
Do you have a favorite from the collection?
The love one is defintiely the best one in my opinion. It was a crazy deadline so it was all a bit rushed and I spent a lot more time no that one.
Will we see you at the Saint Laurent runway show in Paris this week?
Heh, I doubt it. I'm deep in the Canadian mountains.
Will you ever design your own label?
Hell Ya! But probably not until I'm at least 2 more albums in. I kind of want to make a line of chainmail in the short term though.
The collaboration is an important one in a sense that its a prominent display of the evolution both artists are taking into new territory and advancing the boundaries they have secured in the art world. Slimane, the proverbial curator of cool has built an empire over the last 20 years on channeling the rebellious spirit of the youth into is photography and fashion designs. Grimes, the most talked about artist of 2012, has also garnered acclaim as a fine artist in her own right with album art work and a successful gallery show last year in New York City. All eyes seem to be on these innovators in eager anticipation of their next move. We can't wait to see whats next!
The collection can be purchased [HERE]
We caught up with Grimes who has been deep in the Canadian wilderness to share details of this unique partnership.
VIBE: When did you first meet Hedi? Tell us about it.
Grimes: We met on the dazed & confused magazine cover shoot and it was immediately awesome because he was just totally different from any photographer I'd ever worked with. He was really smart and intense and we got along really well. It wasn't about a 'beauty' shot per se, it was about making the best art possible. And thats the stuff that I find really meaningful in the fashion industry.
How familiar were you with Hedi as a designer?
I was actually way more aware of him as a photographer and as a person who was involved in cultural stuff like all the london punk stuff etc. Plus I knew he invented the faux-hawk. I've never paid a ton of attention to menswear until recently.
When was the first conversation about collaborating on a capsule collection? Did Hedi have the idea for the t-shirts in mind?
Ya, It was his idea. It was associated with the love posters that YSL had made in the past because that was brought up as a good possible inspiration.
Did you design these drawings specifically for the collection or were they previous works that were repurposed?
I did some drawings for a spread in vogue japan that he was shooting, one or two of them are drawings that I sent him were for the japanese editorial, but the rest are all original specifically for this. The deadline was super tight so I was doing them in hotel rooms between shows and in the tour bus lol.
Do you have a favorite from the collection?
The love one is defintiely the best one in my opinion. It was a crazy deadline so it was all a bit rushed and I spent a lot more time no that one.
Will we see you at the Saint Laurent runway show in Paris this week?
Heh, I doubt it. I'm deep in the Canadian mountains.
Will you ever design your own label?
Hell Ya! But probably not until I'm at least 2 more albums in. I kind of want to make a line of chainmail in the short term though.
The collaboration is an important one in a sense that its a prominent display of the evolution both artists are taking into new territory and advancing the boundaries they have secured in the art world. Slimane, the proverbial curator of cool has built an empire over the last 20 years on channeling the rebellious spirit of the youth into is photography and fashion designs. Grimes, the most talked about artist of 2012, has also garnered acclaim as a fine artist in her own right with album art work and a successful gallery show last year in New York City. All eyes seem to be on these innovators in eager anticipation of their next move. We can't wait to see whats next!
The collection can be purchased [HERE]
Click through the gallery for Grimes' breakdown of the t-shirt designs for us:
1. "YSL 1"
The one with the snake was again another interpretation of the LOVE poster with the snakes on it from 1970. I love snakes and birds in art because they can function in a decorative way but they're still animate. And I'm not the best at super graphic stuff, so I was trying to find a way to integrate something that could be interpreted in a portrait-like way into the basic format of a logo. I dunno, personally i just feel like it makes something like that more emotionally engaging.
2. "YSL 2"
With the other logo I was just having fun. I was just enjoying painting on a visceral level. When I paint things it just happens on its own sometimes and since it was a logo I was just kind of playing around. I think it was the first one i did so its the most casual.
3. "The Swan"
I wanted to make something classy and a bit macabre. But not in an overly aggressive or gory or cheesy way and I feel like swans really kind of embody this idea, for me at least. They're associated with so much tragic and fantastical art from the early 20th century and ballet and whatnot. I just thought it sort of worked as the biological counterpart to all the pictures hedi was releasing to promote the new saint laurent name change with all the granite and stuff.
4. "Mask"
This was one of the ones I did for the japanese feature. I feel like.. I dunno, it doesn't necessarily stand up to the rest quality-wise. But ya again this was based on the love posters. I wanted to try to make something really blocky and simple that I could imagine in primary colours. Masks really scare me. I think they're another thing (like swans) that I see as classy-horror.
I started drawing kind of as a comix person. My big inspirations initially were Charles Burns and Dan Clowes and so obviously YSL is sort of antithetical to that style of stuff so I was trying to find a middle ground with the swans and masks and snakes.
5. "Love"
This was based on the love posters that YSL put out
