People and Thought.

辞表と勿れ DELUSION TO HEDI SLIMANE

DELUSION TO HEDI SLIMANE

Hedi Slimane, the revolutionary of fashion who was called a genius. I like everything he makes and shoots. As a designer in Asia, there are very few ways to find out about him, and the more I find out about him, the more he is wrapped in a mystery, and looking at the black clothes he makes and the monochrome photos he shoots gets me excited at how his bold activities, which are synonymous to rock, will expand in the future. Speaking of Rock, he takes photos of rock music live performances and has released a photo album of them called Rock Diary. They are mono- chrome and have very bold inks, and the photos still feel so alive that I can almost hear the breath of the performers in the moment. It is one of my personal favorites when it comes to Hedi’s photo albums.

One day, I was daydreaming about Hedi and imagined what if he were an Asian born on an island nation like me, a normal person that everyone can relate with, has a family, and maybe a daughter, who says to him “I want to make an album like yours, Papa,” I wonder what he would do? I don’t have a daughter, so what am I even thinking about? you might say, but I think so much about Hedi that such imaginations blossom.

There was no stopping my daydreaming. As his daughter is still young, they would not do photos, so it might just be an alphabet card of A~Z that she could comprehend. He would want to make it monochrome, but his daughter might say she wants it to be colorful instead. However, Hedi would probably be adamant about keeping a consistent format like Rock Diary instead of just following whatever she says. Although it’s an album, it would probably be more simple, like folded paper.

They would probably have some story for the A~Z motif, and the context of him laughing and enjoying the creative process with his child will likely also be inserted together with the motif. It will be simply written by hand and become a book that is so much more colorful than Hedi expected. As I imagined such a scene while continuing this work as my heart led, it resulted in something totally different from Rock Diary, as expected.

At that stage, I was just about to add the story for the A~Z motif in cursive writing, and decided to just write it all in Japanese, but I wanted it to take slightly longer to read for an Asian, like how it would take them longer to read cursive writing. I was almost at my wit’s end before I got the idea to “write the Japanese characters vertically, make them smaller horizontally, and then rotate that sideways, which would make it hard to comprehend immediately but can be read after some time is put into it”, which would make its readability speed be slightly similar (to cursive writing). Only after actually making them did I realize how similar the structure of the text looked to cursive writing. While the thin and well-spaced Japanese characters looked perfect for light reading, it’s slightly harder to read and looks a lot like cursive writing. While it has totally veered from the idea of Hedi Slimane and Rock Diary, I think being inspired by Hedi to not just copy but create something that is totally different and has no resemblance to his work is probably much closer to his philosophy of rock, and as I finished up my work, I realized how incredibly unique a person Hedi Slimane truly is. I would like to believe that this work of mine is also incredibly unique in that sense.

Hedi, forgive me for this amateur work.  Hedi Slimane will likely continue to shine brightly in my mind.

Atsushi Ishiguro

モードの革命児、天才と称されるエディ・スリマン。彼の作るもの・写すもの、どれを取っても私は好きだ。 アジアのいちデザイナーでは彼の素性を探る術は少なく、調べても広く謎に包まれていて、彼が作る黒い服や撮るモノクロの写真を見ては、これからも展開されるだろう彼のROCKな行動に心を躍らせる。ROCKといえば彼がライブを撮影し、数冊にまとめたROCK DIARYという写真集がある。モノクロでインクもしっかりと乗っていて、今でもその瞬間の呼吸が聞こえてくるような躍動感のある写真集だ。 エディの写真集の中でも個人的に一番好きな本だ。 ある日、またエディのことを考えていると、彼が僕のような島国育ちのアジア人で、容易に想像ができるような普通に暮らす一般人で、家庭を持っていて、たとえば娘がいたりして、その娘に「パパが作ったような本を私も作りたい」なんて言われたら彼はどうするんだろう? 私に娘はいないし、そもそも何を考えているんだ?と言われたらそれまでだが、エディのことを思うあまりそんな想像が膨らんだ。 もう想像は止まらなかった。娘は幼いので写真表現は辞めて、娘でも理解できるようなA~Zの辞表にするかもしれない。モノクロにしようとしても、娘が可愛い色々な色が良いと言うかもしれない。ただ、エディだって全部言われた通りかといえばROCK DIARYのように一つのフォー マットを貫くだろう。本といっても、紙を折ったような簡単な製本のはずだ。 採用するA~Zのモチーフには何か物語を設定するだろう、子供と笑いながら作るその設定は、モチーフと共に表記してしまうかもしれないし、 手書きで簡単に書いたりして、きっとエディも驚くようなカラフルな本になりそうだ。 そんなことを考えながら、心赴くままに製作を続けると、案の定まったく ROCK DIARYとは違うものになっていた。 その段階でA~Zのモチーフに筆記体で物語を足す工程に差し掛かった、違う変化を受け入れ、もぅ日本語で表記してしまおうと考えたが、アジア人が筆記体を読む時に、不慣れで少し時間がかかってしまうような、少しの時間はリンクさせたい。 その想いを消化できないかと考えていた時に「日本語を潰し縦書きをそのまま横にしてしまうことで、瞬時には読めないが少し時間を置けば読める」ということで、可読までの時間が近いのではないかと考えた。 実際に製作してみると、その本文構成の質量(見たときの印象)も筆記体にとても似ていた。 パラパラと字間をあけた軽やかな日本語も、読みにくさもまるで筆記体を見ているようだった。 もはやエディ・スリマンでも、ROCK DIARYでも無いが、エディにインスパイアされ、真似するのではなく全く違う似ても似つかないモノを生み出すこと方が、よっぽどROCKだろうと思ったし、製作も終盤に差し掛かるとエディ・スリマンとは強烈な個性だと思うようになっていた。この作品にもそういった意味では強烈な個性が宿っているはずだ。 エディ、この作品を許してほしい。 エディ・スリマンはまだまだ僕の中で輝き続けるはずだから。

CREDIT

AD+D : ATSUSHI ISHIGURO / @ai_ouwn
D : FUMIKO ISHIKURA / @fumiko_ishikura