Quotes from Hedi Slimane

People always want an explanation about everything and I cannot give it to them. Because I don't know myself. 'Why did you do a pair of pants like that?' I have no idea. I'm not going to have a 20-minute political discussion about the necessity for slashed, painted leather jeans. Basically, I don't know more than you.

Sex is not a subject in my photographs, or would only be if it had to do with romance, sometimes vulnerability. The photographs are quite clearly about happiness, or search for happiness.

I always loved designing, but the context needs to be right, and have a positive perspective.

The framework of men's wear is so narrow, that when you play at the edges you get labeled.

Since I was a child, my whole life has revolved around music. It's often while listening to a song that ideas for my fashion collections formed.

Music has shaped men's fashion and transposed in a playful and witty manner its riding or military heritage. It is difficult to figure out who leads but music and fashion are connected genetically.

In the future, fast-fashion retailers might change their philosophy toward real efforts to create a world of their own. One can only hope.

I don't like the collusion between high fashion design and high street. You have to know where you stand. I belong to luxury fashion. That's what I've always felt and embraced. I like the best quality, the best fabrics and the most creative field in fashion. I will stay consistent. I belong to this world.

I'm going to design again, but I come back when it's the right project, so I keep my passion for it intact.

With the rise of the Internet, fashion did become part of the global entertainment industry in the last ten years, and will follow the digital evolution of the music or film industry.

I have a great admiration and tenderness for Azzedine Alaia. I haven't seen him in a while, but I guess he must be still sewing some dresses at night.

I only like luxury fashion. You have to decide where you stand. I like well-made, authentic clothes, well-crafted tailoring. I also like the dream and fantasy of luxury, the exception and rarity of it. I have no interest at all in fast retail. It is ambiguous.

I love California. It has such a strong contribution to the history of culture, and popular culture. For better and worse, of course. Even the worst can be interesting to some degree sometimes for somebody creative.

I like the ritual, the liturgy of a well-crafted, emotional fashion show. I will never be jaded with this side of fashion. The catwalk is pure anthropology, something like an esoteric encrypted parade. It can totally be replaced but it will be missed.

The iPad needs to catch up with Flash before I put a hand on it.

Hedi was and is still misspelled 'Heidi,' and my perception of genders ended up slightly out of focus from an early age.

When I was designing, I had in mind Jimi Hendrix, and I could hardly find skinny indie black kids to wear my clothes. I remember one telling me he had to swap his skinny jeans for baggy ones in the subway before going home, so he wouldn't get in trouble in his neighborhood.

David Bowie, for me, was the butchest guy in town. Jagger was like a truck driver.

Fashion somehow, for me, is purely and happily irrational.

I like the idea of paradox, between the authentic fabrics and sophisticated shapes and between masculine and feminine. I'm not so much for sportswear. I think it's over.

Photography has always been about documentary, the depiction of the instant, a moment, sometimes a place. Each project is somehow an experimentation of a specific context or a character.

Men's fashion has a certain heaviness in the fabrics and construction. But also there is a heaviness in the mentality.

Men are not supposed to be mysterious. That's what you say about women. But I think men can have a little of it, too.

I thought I should work more on the idea that you wear a suit or a jacket because of the fun it can provide, because it's a game, because it might even have a sexual quality.