Kim Jones planned to unveil his Dior Men pre-fall collection on March 23 in Hong Kong. The show was set to follow the model of the house’s catwalk spectacular in Egypt in December 2022, until it was postponed indefinitely last month. Instead, Jones presents the collection through this lookbook.
“Elegance” and “effortlessness” are key words to understand Jones’ most recent collections at Dior Men. Right out of the gate, but especially in his most recent fall collection, Jones came up with a softer take on refined menswear. Central to this vision was, and still is, his suit. This pre-fall lineup is “about simplicity and sophistication through ease,” Jones said, evoking ideas of fluidity and loucheness, and “the pleasure of getting dressed.”
Jones checked the legacies of Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent in his notes, harking back to flowing suits made with decisive yet forgiving cuts that contoured the body and helped define elegance in the second half of the 20th century. In this collection, Jones also expanded on the couture fabrications he introduced for fall, referencing Monsieur Dior’s 1950 ‘Debussy’ dress through the striped embroidery of the 1952 ‘Pépite’ dress to extrapolate and apply Saint Laurent’s house and floral embroidery from 1958. to seductive shirts.
Here, Jones took tie closures – from Saint Laurent’s ‘Trapèze’ collection – and applied them to shirts in place of button plackets and to relaxed interpretations of the cardigan. These concoctions produced Jones’ first real version of the three-piece suit at Dior, but the silhouette is more reminiscent of a comfortable robe over a comfortable shirt than a form-fitting three-piece #menswear. They highlight Jones’ take on the elegance of contemporary menswear, which softens rather than arms the man.
Elsewhere, Jones created a beautiful floating shawl lapel effect on his sloppy overcoats and jackets, and layered organza under wide-leg shorts in a playful yet convincing nod to the ball gowns his predecessors offered in the Dior salons. Now that Capote’s Swans are the talk of the town, mid-century ideas have resurfaced. These are applied almost exclusively to womenswear, with luxury menswear limited to their companion, but not for Jones.
What’s most compelling about Jones’s reinterpretation of mid-century glamor is seeing what this distinction looks like in the context of contemporary menswear. At Dior Men, sartorial refinement today is equal parts elegance and pragmatism, opulence and practicality. Connected to classicity and yet separate from traditional masculinity. It’s quite exciting to see it unfold.
