Getting Bob Dylan to sit in front of a camera is a rarity. But for Celine’s infamous “Portrait of a Musician” series, photographed by Hedi Slimane, Dylan agreed. After Slimane has shot portraits of stars reaching from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker to Iggy Pop, the singer-songwriter was next in line, uniting two icons of their respective industries. Staying so close to the music industry might be the ultimate secret of Slimane’s timeless success, as fashion always follows the evolution in music in his mind.

Bob Dylan Portrait © 2022, Hedi Slimane

Dylan has sold the staggering amount of 125 million records. His more recent work as an author shows his diverse creative talent. His writing was recognized worldwide and awarded with the Nobel Prize for literature by the Swedish Academy for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Iconic.

Hedi Slimane’s superpower is his timelessness. The creative director of Celine is one of the most influential people in the fashion industry. Slimane always looks into music as inspiration for his designs, which he talked about in a recent interview with the author Lizzy Goodman called “Age of Indieness”. Their shared experience of New York in the early 2000s sparked a conversation about nostalgia and the correlation between the music and fashion industry. “I can only think about something almost tribal, fashion and live performance as a liturgic ritual. They are both about togetherness, belonging privately and publicly, semiotics, attitudes, proportions.” Slimane’s collections would come to him organically by envisioning what musicians would wear on stage. Music transcends generations, its appeal continues over time and so do Slimane’s designs. “Fashion always follows the evolution in music.” And everyone follows Hedi Slimane. Now for the third time with his success at Celine after Dior Homme and Saint Laurent.

Dylan’s success as an author was recently reinforced, when he published his newest book “The Philosophy of Modern Song”. He writes about 66 popular songs that influenced the music industry. The book was generally well received; however, some voices have pointed out a serious flaw in Dylan’s collection of songs. Out of the 66 analyzed songs, only four are by female artists, the first one being mentioned after 46 songs by men showcasing a mindset that is not aging so well.