Final day of Paris men’s shows

July 4, 2006 – Today was the final day of the Paris men’s shows, and the last day of a sweltering heat wave. It was also the evening of the Dior Homme show, which was held in the Ateliers Berthier.

I left early for the show, taking the metro to avoid surface traffic. Big mistake. The line 13 was a series of overcrowded cattle cars not fit for humans. Just when it looked as if things could not get any worse, they did – a power outage left my train stranded in a tunnel tantalizingly close to my final destination, Porte de Clichy. We waited, and waited, and waited. The clock ticked. Finally, the lights came back on and the train began a slow ascent up to the platform.

My guardian angel must have surely been looking out for me, because not an hour later I had the incredible luck to be shaking Mick Jagger’s hand backstage after the Dior Homme show. He had come in quickly to greet Hedi, and when he saw me standing slightly to the left, he looked up, smiled and put out his hand. “Hey there guy,” he said.

This was a sad day, as it is all but certain Hedi Slimane is leaving Dior Homme. My work as a fashion editor more or less paralleled his stint with the label, and I was fortunate to cover nine out of ten shows he produced. (During his premiere, I was laid up in a Paris clinic due to cancer surgery).

But Hedi (whose name means ‘wisdom’ in Arabic) will undoubtedly go on to greater things.

– Timothy Hagy