Given the thrills Slimane has managed to generate in a precinct of fashion not known for surprises, his Dior Homme show, which takes place tomorrow, looms like an event, a hot-ticket spectacle—hence the surgical preparation. Throughout the rehearsal, the space is engulfed in darkness, the keypads on the cell phones in use around the room emitting the only light in tiny squares. Off to the side, Slimane and several others are huddled by a techno campfire otherwise known as the lighting console.

"Here, he and the lighting designer, Thierry Dreyfus, refine the cues, coordinating them with the music and the pacing of a shirtless 16-year-old with a torso as hard and narrow as a flask, who trudges down the catwalk maybe fifteen times. Every aspect of the show, from the particular black hue of the catwalk to the design of the invitation to the commissioned soundtrack, has been conceived over the course of months by Slimane and executed to the letter by his team. « We’re not last-minute people, » Friedberg tells me...

by Lucy Kaylin-February 2004