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Tone in chic

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Times Staff Writer

Hedi Slimane is the man responsible for the way rock ‘n’ roll looks today. His slim-line aesthetic, a cross between sleek and slacker, mod and 1980s punk, is everywhere -- on David Bowie, Beck, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand. For the kickoff of the Rolling Stones’ “A Bigger Bang” tour last weekend, Mick Jagger turned to Slimane to design his skin-tight blue metallic jeans, silver satin jacket and black T-shirt with red crystal embroideries. A Boston-based band, Keys to the Streets of Fear, has even released a song titled “Hedi Slimane.”

In just five years as the design director of Dior Homme, Slimane has forged an identity for a fashion house known for little more than logo-print ties, and his lean tailoring has revived an interest in designer menswear in general. He may be the first person since Tom Ford to create a distinct image that can be applied to fashion, furnishings, photography, fragrance packaging and store design.

And now Slimane is in L.A. to begin the work of designing a Dior Homme Rodeo Drive store, scheduled to open early next year. He slinks down to breakfast in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont. He has skin without imperfection and a flip of dark hair. He’s as slender as the silver pinstripes on his shirt, left unbuttoned over a T-shirt and low-rise black pants that hug every boyish angle.

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Slimane has a Hollywood following too, namely Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Ewan McGregor. Not to mention Nicole Kidman and Sarah Jessica Parker, who have snapped up his signature stovepipe trousers and narrow jackets, planting the seeds for a women’s line the designer says he plans to launch next year.

Sweet as a lamb, with a soft voice, it is difficult to imagine him moving in the rough-and-tumble music crowd. But Slimane, 37, has been a club kid since his youth, and he breathes rock ‘n’ roll -- so much so that he makes it a point to visit the Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard every time he’s in town; he plays the drums. Names of new bands tumble out of his mouth with a teenage passion -- Arctic Monkeys, the Rake, the Others. “They’re really good, you have to check it out,” he says with a French accent, like the older kid in school who knows before anybody else what to listen to.

But these days, it’s Pete Doherty who’s on heavy rotation on Slimane’s iPod. The pallid British rocker was Slimane’s muse for his spring collection and the subject of his new photography book, “London: Birth of a Cult.” Doherty is also the on-again, off-again lover of fashion icon Kate Moss. His look is a sort of post-millennial version of Moss’ heroin chic. The London Observer has dubbed it “skank chic,” others have called it “tweak chic.” Basically, though he may wear $1,000-plus Dior suits, he looks like he’s climbed out of a dumpster after a hard night, and probably did.

Formerly of the Libertines and now front man for the band Baby Shambles, Doherty is one of the pioneers of the new British music scene. Just starting to hit the radar in the U.S., with coverage recently in Vanity Fair, Doherty has been at the center of a torrent of tabloid coverage in Europe -- the drug habit that derailed the promising Libertines, the stints in rehab and jail, the barroom brawls, the fights with and rumored engagement to Moss.

Slimane counts Doherty as a close friend and accompanied him on tour, shooting photos from the side of the stage. He wasn’t interested in his personal life, only his musical vision and effortless cool.

“Long hair on the face, chaotic styling, the mix of clothing that you have been wearing for days, and pieces from your girlfriend,” Slimane says. “He is emblematic of the new indie rock scene.”

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In the book, Slimane set out to document a “historical moment” he says began in 2002 when bands such as the Strokes and the White Stripes began to revitalize guitar rock. It is about getting back to “the ritual of performance” after years of synthesized, over-produced pop and electronica. “There is a sense that we are traveling from classic rock ‘n’ roll icons like David Bowie to a new generation.”

The photos, largely black and white, are raw. They reflect Doherty’s intimacy with his audience, and Slimane’s intimacy with his subject. One picture shows Doherty looking elegantly wasted in a pirate’s hat, another shows the singer in a slashed white T-shirt cropped to the chest. The silhouette appears in Slimane’s spring ’06 collection, as a tux jacket cropped to the chest and again as the hipbone-skimming silver satin jacket Jagger wears during the current Rolling Stones tour.

It’s not the designer’s first book. Last year he released “Stage,” documenting live performances by the Stones, the White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand and others. “I especially like the transformation just before going onstage,” he says. “That’s the moment they become rock stars.”

When working with Doherty or Jagger, he says, “I don’t want to dress them, I want them to tell me something I can do for them.” Some of his clients, such as Justin Hawkins from the British band the Darkness, are looking for fantasy stage wear. “Like David Bowie in his day,” he says. “They know exactly what they want, but you have to understand performance and body language. It’s a lot of work, actually, like designing a collection of its own.”

Slimane’s collections have cut a wide swath through the music world. Last year, he mined Seattle grunge and glam rock. His spring ’06 collection -- shown in Paris last month -- riffed on 1980s ska bands with a mod twist. As always, there were the skinniest of jeans, this season held up with narrow suspenders, and paired with black-and-white checkerboard tees or sleeveless shirts with gaping armholes, and two-toned flat-soled creepers. A gold sequined jacket came decorated with the Union Jack and silky baseball jackets were dotted with musical notes.

Like many designers today, he is multitalented and talks enthusiastically about his “projects,” which span fashion, art and interior design. He has designed ebony and stainless steel furniture available exclusively at the Dover Street Market in London, and he recently completed a residency at Berlin’s Kunst-Werke art gallery. Berlin was the subject of his first book, and the lean look of the young students in the German capital was an inspiration for more than one Dior collection. Early in his fashion career, Slimane plucked models from Berlin streets, satisfying a fascination with spindly physiques that continues with his runway casting today.

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This fall Slimane will launch the first mass-market fragrance for his label. He will guest curate an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work in Paris. Rather than dwelling on the erotic photography Mapplethorpe is known for, Slimane is focusing on his early career, showcasing jewelry he made in the 1960s. It is the origins of creativity that interest Slimane most, whether he’s thinking about the work of Mapplethorpe or Doherty.

Slimane was a student at the Ecole du Louvre in art history before he came onto the fashion scene in 1996, designing menswear for Yves Saint Laurent, then moving to Dior in 2000. He grew up in Paris, where his mother was a seamstress and his father an accountant. “It was weird growing up because half of my family was middle class and half of my family was wealthy,” he says. “It was the total opposite lifestyle, which I think is why now I always need the high and the low, the street and the social [set]. I was raised like that to go from regular car to a Bentley.”

If it were up to him, he’d be driving himself around L.A. in a 1970s lowrider or a vintage sports car, instead of being chauffeured in a sedan. For Slimane, never-ending asphalt is the stuff of dreams, and the inspiration for the Rodeo Drive store.

“It is about elongation because the space is very narrow,” he says. “Instead of trying to change that, I will make it like the highway. It’s a metaphor for the city.”

On his last trip to L.A., he tried to enroll in driving school, but it didn’t work out. Still, Slimane is determined to learn, even if it means having a friend teach him in a vacant parking lot.

It seems he’s found his next project.

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