Kia Gerber and Hedi Slimane know that Malibu is the capital of fashion

Hedi Slimane, Céline’s creative, artistic and image director since 2018, is like the great Boris Karloff-meets-Greta Garbo of Los Angeles. Occasionally, an online fashion platform might be spotted browsing vintage t-shirts at the Rose Bowl flea market, or guests at an art world dinner might be buzzing about a trip to Frieze Los Angeles. The only real clue to what Slimane is up to? Hedi Slimane’s diary, a portrait collection he has maintained on his website for over a decade. The notebook has a cult following of zine or hybrid images, of sentimental children with rough edges, occasionally seen by the likes of Debbie Harry. (For this one-time Tumblr teenager, the thrift store was the bible when she was cutting up t-shirts and stuffing them in her suburban mall tundra.)

Now model Kia Gerber, a Malibu native and close friend of Slimane’s, has joined the group of diary subjects. He recently stopped by her family’s home wearing a leather jacket, scarf and black jeans. “What I love about him is that he’s like me,” Gerber said in an interview. He has a uniform and that’s all he wears. He had Gerber and her brother Presley, with whom she had never been photographed, sit and snap the photos here. “It was the spur of the moment. Do you want to do this?? Well, definitely! “To have someone in your home—Heidi is probably one of those people I’d like to do that with.”

He made great music, of course –Electric mud, in Moody Waters, which Gerber has been listening to on repeat ever since — and “it was very simple hair and makeup,” she says. “He’s such a genius. He knows what he wants. We can do a lot in a day. And we take a long break in the middle of the day. It doesn’t really feel like work. “

What makes diary images unique as an artistic project is that most fashion or fashion-adjacent images are about pretending or playing pretend. Slimane’s pictures are about the life he and his inner circle are actually living. “Creating that form of intimacy that I think has to be there to create images like that. I think the reason he shoots so many incredibly iconic people is, you know, when you’re surrounded by a group of people, it creates that sense of intimacy,” Gerber says of the two talking. She laughs. “It’s a beautiful environment,” she added. That’s why the pictures feel so vulgar, she added. Even Gerber and Slimane’s dogs hung up. (Sleeman’s dog’s name is Elvis. And he has beautiful fur.) Of course your dog will have beautiful hair!”)

Gerber thinks that the power of Slimane’s photography is designing his clothes And Taking photos, which is rarely (if at all) in fashion. “His focus is something I’ve never seen before,” says Gerber. “Every bracelet, every earring—he has such an eye. He never forgets anything.” So does he make minute adjustments to hair and makeup while you’re shooting? Yes: “He is a perfectionist of the highest order.”

The photos also have an unhurried, distinctly California feel. Nowadays, anyone who thinks LA isn’t a fashion city is missing the point (and not just by Robert Altman). A long greeting, with its sweaty outfits and proto-influencers doing nude yoga and Malibu Hippie Housewife, the best fashion movie I’ve ever seen). “We usually shoot in the south of France,” says Gerber. “It was great to see him in my hometown. He knows Malibu like the back of his hand, she added. “That’s what’s crazy. Like the soft shop where my brother got his first job, he knew it all.

Slimane sees Los Angeles, and especially Gerber’s native Malibu, as a style subculture that permeates clothes, symbols that only the natives recognize as local, but that can now be seen in the wardrobe of any well-to-do person in Seoul or Tokyo. Or London or New York. “I go somewhere else and I notice influences that I probably didn’t know before,” says Gerber. His presence around the city has become like a myth. “I think he’s always been drawn to surf culture, and you see that in his collection, in his clothes. was kind of The Legend of HeidiIt’s somewhere around Malibu and it can drop you off. There are people in my high school who are photographed by him in the same way. [own] Clothing, keeping that culture. Although Malibu is not known as the capital of fashion, its style influence under the direction of Slimane at Celine is huge. “It’s not appreciated that way. And I think Heidi did that fashion thing as a cultural moment.

Sometimes Gerber looks at his shows and thinks, “That’s great, I wonder where that came from! And then I was like, wait! It’s what the kids at my school are wearing! But the way he does it makes you look at him differently and appreciate him.

They became friends almost two years ago, when the pandemic brought the fashion world to a standstill and Slimane began a creative golden age with his fashion films. (You could say TikTok revolutionized Céline’s menswear, and Gerber did the same for womenswear.) Now, Gerber wears Céline almost every day, but she remembers thinking back, “Oh my God, what should I wear to meet the coolest guy? The coolest style?!” (She’s not alone: ​​countless fashion designers, from Nicolas Ghesquière to Jonathan Anderson, have been inspired by how they say it.) nice It’s Slimane.) “I think it’s because being simple and cool is one of the hardest things,” reflects Gerber. And he just has it down to a T.

“And he does the best,” she says. He takes something and turns it into the best it can truly be. Perfect blue jeans, perfect leather jacket. “He was always good at stepping things up. Maybe this is part of his French.

“I love that this is all you need. one Jean – It’s your jeans. Or a jacket. If you saw a picture of me last year, I probably wore it, and I have this Celine leather blazer. That’s how I like to dress. If I find something I like, I’m going to wear it all the time. And I think that’s why I love Heidi so much. He actually made parts where you could do that.

But what are these two fashion fanatics talking about? “He knows a lot about music, about movies. He is truly an artist in the truest sense of the word, drawing inspiration from everywhere – images and architecture and furniture. He knows very well. He’s a scary guy at first because that’s who he is, but really, he’s such a kind, wonderful, and smart guy. Mostly, I’m the only one asking questions because I want to know everything about how his mind works.

The diversity of Slimane’s taste, its unmistakable authentic nature, also made an impression on Gerber. “One is very rare [thinking]They ask themselves, “Oh, I like it.” Why do I love it? I think someone knows the answer. And most of us cannot answer this question. Working with him I think I learned what I like about things and why I like them and why I’m attracted to things. Far away.