Maximal Minimalism

The first thing Hedi Slimane did when he took over Dior Homme in 2000 was strip its Paris atelier down to next to nothing. He then set about cultivating rock-star clients such as Beck and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, patronizing stars like artist Pierre Huyghe and designer Pierre Charpin, photographing punky street kids in Berlin, producing angular furniture for Rei Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market, and—almost as an afterthought—turning out collection after collection of fashionable men’s clothing. In his remaining free time Slimane has been designing the interiors of the Christian Dior men’s stores in Milan, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo—and most recently Osaka and Las Vegas—in a maximalist minimalism so stripped down and cut up as to practically collapse space onto itself.

Disorienting black-and-white stripes, walls adorned with black padded-leather squares, and fitting-room installations—by artists including Ugo Rondinone, Ann Veronica Janssens, Sean Dack, and Liam Gillick—are meant to consolidate the new Dior brand identity by making it instantly recognizable as soon as you walk in the door. Rondinone’s “optically shifting space” in the New York store makes the customer appear to be pasted against the wall—less than ideal for checking out the fit of clothes but presumably perfect for seducing potential fashion victims. The image-plastered fitting rooms by Dack and Gillick in Shanghai are supposed to convey “an experience of visual intimacy.” Perhaps it’s the intimacy of a total media culture in which looking at oneself alone in the mirror—without a bunch of glossy images in the background—would seem strange and alienating.