Yahoo Finance Dior Homme: Kim Jones nods to the past and stomps into the future in sparkling debut
Kim Jones, the British designer who recently took the reigns at Dior Homme, the menswear arm of the revered Paris house, showed his debut collection in Paris on Saturday in a high octane spectacle of a show overlooked by a towering mass of 70,000 flowers sculpted into a cartoon figure by pop artist Kaws, holding a terrier for good measure.
The flowers, and the terrier, were no accident; on his first outing for the house, Jones looked at Monsieur Dior's love of gardening, and his dog Bobby, who appeared in designs throughout Dior’s life. Those roses - the same ones that inspired the founder in the 1940s to create full skirts that echoed their bloom - came in myriad form across coats, sweaters and bomber jackets, picked out in embroidery or layered with organza on top for a shimmering effect, like flora under water.
Jones - who took up the role after stepping down as head of menswear at Louis Vuitton in January - wanted, he said, to play with contrasts. “I wanted to create something that felt fresh and light but masculine, and stayed true to what Dior is about."
That freshness parlayed into his new interpretation of the suit, a draped silhouette that fastens on the side in a single button, for a more fluid interpretation of tailoring, but with structure and form in the shoulders and jacket shapes. The colours of lemon, apricot, chalky pink and pale blue were balanced with jolts of citrine.
Porcelain from the founder’s house and the toile de jouy patterns employed in the flagship store’s wallpaper in 1947 wended their way onto coats and jackets, but this was no history lesson; stomping trainers and narrow, slick trousers marched the new Dior man into the 21st century and beyond.
And while there was a delicacy to the motifs, the shapes - pristine trench coats, bomber jackets and roll shouldered suits - were masculine. “I wanted a play between masculinity and femininity,” said the designer. The founder himself was the first to employ wool for men’s suits into his signature jackets, and Jones riffed on that in the classically English blue and white stripes that riddled the gauzy, airy coats.
Where former Dior Homme creative director Kris Van Assche’s aesthetic was focused on a dark, almost foreboding kind of subcultural cool, this new iteration is all about lightness; coats that seemed to float, organza layers for a cloud like, ethereal feel and transparent fabrics.
The most exceptional pieces in the collection were a pair of coats that looked as if printed in those chintzy wallpaper motifs, except the couture atelier at Dior had painstakingly constructed the design out of feathers; hand painted, teased into tendrils and patterns and then layered over with vinyl. If that sounds hyper feminised and cloyingly pretty, it wasn’t; the effect added a artisanal element to the clean, sharp, minimalist coats. Exactly what the banner term ‘men’s couture’ should be, and pretty sublime.
Jones’ tenure at Vuitton means he has a finely honed antenna for what will make a hit accessory, and his new interpretation of the iconic Dior saddlebag has undergone a gender reassignment to make it relevant for men, in a larger size and in slate and fawn shades. “I wanted to do Dior but in an easy, natural, organic way,” said Jones, who began as a London sportswear designer and is now possibly the most influential (and if rumours are to be true, highly paid) menswear designer in the world. “It’s Dior, but it’s me”, he said. And what an almighty spark that fusion has created.
