Hedi Slimane

Arena Homme Plus, the reincarnation of VOGUE HOMMES INTERNATIONAL (well issue # 7, under Carine Roitfeld) have been the epitome of cool in mens fashion magazines for quite sometime. Arena Homme Plus Spring/Summer 2003 sits on my desk as a reference on male modernity. That pale pink on that black and white image was such a radical statement for me. Enter, Vogue Hommes Japan , a new mens magazine looking for market share.

Hedi Slimane, unveiled a solo exhibition, titled "Perfect Stranger ," Wednesday night at the packed and dimly lit Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, WWD reports.

Beauty Betty Catroux was in hot pursuit of the man of the moment, telling WWD "He's like my twin."

"I'm crazy about everything he touches."

Anton Corbijn is a renowned music and sometime fashion photographer. Working with the likes of U2 , Green Day to Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington.

Great interview to a contemporary fashion icon. The graceful questioning was held at Hedi's studio in Paris. And notice how he admits his desires of starting a womenswear line.

Today I was reading an article on Times Online about this year “sexiest” male model - a condition attributed by the magazine after following certain criteria. His name is David Gandy, a next door man from Essex who has worked with a great share of the industry’s heave-hitters. But it wasn’t his personality, his achievements, nor his life what attracted me from that article; but something I had thought about several times, but had never heard from the mouth of an actual model.

You’re probably wondering, what is he talking about? Well, I’m talking about the huge fear some models felt as Hedi raised and the skinny silhouette was imposed. They felt their careers were about to end, and that their fame would vanish away - these men even thought about leaving the business for good. But, as David says, what would they do? Most of them had no other “talents” and hadn’t invested their money properly, so their future would be indeed compromised.

The media rarely talks about this, but look what David Gandy said to Times Online: “Once or twice he thought about packing it in because the fashion for thin, waifish boys, initiated by the hugely influential Hedi Slimane, until recently menswear designer at Dior, and popularized by Pete Doherty, meant that Gandy was pigeonholed as commercial rather than creative. But then he asked himself what else he would be doing (“I wasn’t very academic and I got kicked out of art school”)”