toronto star article: dior homme f/w campaign + artist paul p. collabo

[canice]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1138834250467&call_pageid=991479973472&col=991929131147

a neat read in today's toronto star fashion section, nice to see a toronto artist get international exposure like this.

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Dior's new look

Feb. 2, 2006. 07:05 AM

DAVID GRAHAM

FASHION WRITER

Paul P. is still a little bewildered that Hedi Slimane, the world's most directional men's fashion designer, wanted to use his gay porn-inspired art in the current Dior Homme spring/summer 2006 advertising campaign.

That's not to say the 28-year-old Hamilton-born artist, known internationally for his homoerotic figurative studies, isn't honoured by the joint venture.

In the campaign the artist's pencil drawings of a fashion model are presented with photographs of the same lithe young man wearing Slimane's sexy, mod clothes.

Paul P. doesn't know how Slimane was introduced to his art, but acknowledges they have a common aesthetic. Though they have never met, their shared vision of seductive, masculine imagery, particularly as revealed in the campaign, is undeniable.

"I'm not sure where it all began," Paul P. said in an interview earlier this week. He suspects that Slimane saw his images at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris and was inspired to combine their efforts in the spring campaign which was shot by Slimane, a keen photographer. As it turns out, the Paris-based fashion designer and the Toronto artist are remarkably alike.

Slimane, who has been creative director at the LVMH fashion house since 2000, is credited with putting men in skinny, shrunken suits, sexy low-rise rock 'n' roll jeans and gold patent high-heeled boots.

Similarly, Paul P.'s head and shoulder portraits and landscapes with "small, shadowy incomprehensible figures" are inspired by images of male porn models from the pre-AIDS era, he says.

For the current Dior Homme ad campaign Paul P. drew (graphite on paper) five renditions of a single live model.

But he is actually famous for his drawings and paintings inspired by images of young men who 20 to 30 years ago appeared as porn.

Paul P.'s reputation and fan base is larger than his life in Toronto. His provocative and always untitled artwork has been displayed at galleries all over the world, including Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Tokyo and New York. In Toronto, his work has hung at Spin Gallery, the Power Plant, Mercer Union and Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

Paul P. began using only the initial of his last name while still in school and struggling to find a way to separate himself from other artists. There is no pretension, he insists. And, he adds, he is hiding nothing, and denying nothing, by opting to use only P. on his calling card. Still, he declined to reveal his full last name.

Paul P. is apparently not a publicity hound.

We had to seek him out.

While initially the collaboration between Slimane and Paul P. seems baffling — a world famous fashion designer and a young Toronto artist specializing in porn images — on further inspection the partnership makes perfect sense.

Paul P.'s images have been described as both homoerotic and deeply romantic. The same can be said for Slimane's approach to fashion.

The soft-spoken artist, who graduated in 2000 with a bachelor of fine arts from York University, describes his art as "melancholic and very approachable." Slimane, by the same token, is known for his fascination with hard street style. He has embraced the druggy image of bad boy rocker Pete Doherty, Kate Moss's ex, as fashion muse.

Paul P. bases his art on pornographic materials

[englandmj7]

Interesting read, thanks...........

[NESK]

i googled teh artists name and didnt come up with much links that had his work to see. im interested in seeing what his aesthetic is and why dior homme would be all over it.

does anyone who wears dior homme think this puts a weird spin on the line? like does wearing dior now associate you with the pre-aids gay crowd?