Gayville's most fashionable circles have been speculating about Hedi Slimane's seemingly surprising departure from Paris-based Dior Homme. Known for his slick, skinny suits, Slimane has posted a very special note on his website, clarifying conjecture that he refused to sell his name to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the luxury conglomerate responsible for Louis Vuitton (obviously), Marc Jacobs, Givenchy and Fendi, among countless others.

Apologizing for his English, Slimane first admits to enjoying his time at Dior and, as he says, "living in a movement". Protracted and increasingly frustrating negotiations, however, proved to be too much for the frail-looking fashionista. At the end of his contract last July, he writes, he decided to leave the company.

Executives attempted to dissuade Slimane by offering him his own line, for a price and, of course, his name. Slimane may have been tempted at first, but his integrity won out...

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Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane not only worships edgy street youth and uses them as models in his fashion shows; he also takes photos of them and puts them on the Internet. His "online diary" has no words, just soulful images of troubled (and sometimes shirtless) young men, and no expensive fashion to be found. One more after the jump.

HEDI SLIMANE DIARY [HediSlimane.com via Made In Brazil]

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A famous fashion designer made a mess in the backroom, and we can only imagine what expensive threads he ruined with his absent-minded antics.

The blind item from Popbitch:

Which sharp-tongued fashion designer made a spectacle of himself at a brothel in Rio this year? At brothel 202, the fashionista asked for the three biggest black guys to shag him, but had forgotten to douche so sprayed the room with poo.

Those pictured above are just some ideas, but we suspect one more than the other two, purely based on his diet.

Over the past five years, Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane has made us realize the sexiness of skinny, young men with killer bodies. Well, it was either him or Bel Ami, but either way Slimane has narrowed the male silhouette and brought tapered pants back into style since he took over designing the Dior menswear line in 2001. His designs have become must-haves for the hippest celebrities with no hips.

The New Yorker has published a detailed profile of Slimane, in which he discusses his many idiosyncracies, including the fact that he is rarely nostalgic, except for David Bowie and girls in tight jumpsuits:

Hedi Slimane sits alone in his room, in a pleasant but not very fashionable part of Paris, mooning over an album cover. He has just turned six. The year is 1974. The record, a birthday gift from a friend of his older sister, is “David Live”—David Bowie, recorded at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia. The friend, Véronique, likes to put on a blue jumpsuit and imitate Bowie. She does a good Mick Jagger, too. Slimane is captivated by her. He is also captivated by the album cover, which features a photograph of Bowie onstage, dressed in a powder-blue double-breasted suit: the jacket is cut short, with narrow but square shoulders, and the pants, although pleated and billowy in the legs, are tight at the crotch.

The more attractive pieces in the Dior Homme line in fact seem to us to be very nostalgic, in that they make men today look like sexy men from decades past. Skinny pants, skinny ties, skinny boys... Ah weren't those the days?

Slimane actually spends a good deal of his time looking for the perfect skinny boys to model for him. Sometimes he gets his driver to take him out in the middle of the night on what he calls "boy safaris":

Slimane is distinguished from most other designers by his practice of casting unknowns or nonprofessionals for his shows. Like everyone else in the trade, he calls them “boys.” He spots them on the street or in clubs—a process that Slimane calls “boy safari.” He won’t really say what the right attributes are, and they can vary from show to show, but generally he prefers his boys tall, lean, slightly androgynous, and English. Usually, he has an assistant make the approach, but if he is alone he will do it himself. He then summons all the candidates to a photography studio and whittles them down to three or four dozen, whom he invites to Paris for fittings. Casting is a year-round job.

The article makes clear how moody and French Slimane is, but also how talented. It's rumored that he will design both mens and womenswear for Yves Saint Laurent when his Dior contract expires this July. Will we see girls in skinny pants and skinny ties? For now we're content looking at the boys, in and out of their clothes. Photos from the Dior Homme Summer 2006 campaign are after the jump.

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• We’re fashion queen, but Hedi Slimane’s obsession with malnourished twinks is something we find disturbing, not artful nor sexy. [Towleroad]

• Of course it’s time for more of Dan Renzi’s brother. [Dan Renzi]

• Even in 1990 Joan Rivers looked like a club kid. She fit right in. [WOW Report]

• The NY Daily News recently featured a few blogs and somehow seemed to leave out the fact that these sites (well Trent, Jared, and Perez) are Gay, Gay, Gay! [NY Daily News]

• Speaking of Perez, he found this great clip of Star Jones getting hit in the face with a football. Yup, it’s brilliant. [Perez Hilton]