Intermission 1. Hedi Slimane

His mother Italian, his father Tunisian and his grandmother Brazilian, Hedi Slimane was born in Paris in 1967 and took his first steps in this sphere almost by chance. Hardly had the most powerful pen of the fashion press, Suzy Menkes of the Herald Tribune, spoken of him with enthusiasm than all doors swung open for the young man. Today he need fear no rivals. One of today's most influential fashion designers, he has created a new identity and style for contemporary man; he is certainly the person to whom we owe the transformation of the Maison Dior into an icon of our times. In October 2001 Francesco Bonami, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago and director of the Venice Biennial and Jèrome Sans, co-director of the Palais de Tokyo of Paris proposed that Hedi Slimane should set up an exhibition in Florence within the scope of the Pitti Immagine shows, and produce a book. The title of the project is Intermission and it is the visual expression of Slimane's metal process, dominated at its core by contemporary aesthetics.