Hedi Slimane, the fashion designer credited with having revolutionised menswear at Christian Dior, is to become creative director at Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), industry sources told AFP yesterday.

“He is becoming the new director at Yves Saint Laurent,” one industry insider said, adding that the two sides had already a contract.

Sources said the appointment was due to be officially announced this week: Paris Fashion Week runs from Tuesday to March 7.

A spokesman for the PPR group, which owns Yves Saint Laurent, declined to comment.

Slimane, returning to the fashion industry after several years away, would replace the Italian designer, Stefano Pilati, rumoured since last autumn to be on the way out.

YSL denied a report by fashion journalist Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune that Pilati would be replaced by the Belgian designer Raf Simons, currently at Jil Sander.

Slimane, now 43, spent seven years as artistic director at Dior before moving on in 2007, saying he wanted a chance to design for women. He is considered by his peers as one of the most gifted designers of his generation.

With the move to YSL he is coming full circle. He first arrived there in 1997 as head of the menswear collection, leaving in 2000 when the Italian house Gucci bought it, bringing in its house stylist Tom Ford.

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