PARIS, June 23 — Dior put on an austere sci-fi spectacle at Paris Fashion Week today that wowed the audience with models rising unexpectedly out of hidden trapdoors.
Despite the impressive gimmick, Dior’s creative director Kim Jones told AFP the stark, metallic set design was aimed at putting the focus on the outfits — not always the case in the publicity-hungry world of high fashion.
“The thing about what I do is that they are always real clothes. I really think about what the customer wants,” Jones told AFP at Dior’s showroom next to the Arc de Triomphe.
The model is wearing a Kim Jones design as part his Menswear ready to wear Spring/Summer collection 2024 show at fashion house Dior Homme. — Reuters pic
Dior, the LVMH brand that is more popular than Louis Vuitton has become the yin of the yang.
It was striking to see the contrast after Pharrell’s debut as Louis Vuitton Designer earlier this week. He turned the historic Pont Neuf in Paris into an outdoor club and more of a concert rather than a catwalk.
Jones, who previously led menswear for Louis Vuitton, helped to pioneer a blend of luxury streetwear which has been a driving force behind the huge growth that the brand is experiencing.
But now at Dior, he focuses on the house’s fabled past, and his new collection drew heavily on its famous “cannage” crosshatch pattern along with leopard prints from the days when Yves Saint Laurent was creative director in the late 1950s.
Kim Jones presents his Menswear Ready-to-Wear Spring/Summer 2019 collection for Dior Homme. — Reuters pic
“I wanted to go back to what Dior was, the New Look but seen via the New Wave with a punky edge to it, turning the leopard print from Saint Laurent into something that could be a revolutionary’s vest or something,” said Jones.
According to him, the past catalogues are a source of endless inspiration.
“You can look at a couple of couture pieces and pull out enough for a whole season. That’s the magic of it. Fabrics used by Dior were masculine. The way the patterns were done was very interesting,” he said.
Gwendoline Christie, Demi Moore and Winnie Harlow are seen after Kim Jones Menswear ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2024 collection show for fashion house Dior Homme during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, France, June 23, 2023. — Reuters pic
‘A bit of shopping’
The interview was briefly interrupted by the appearance of Hollywood star Demi Moore, a close friend whom he referred to as “my wife”, along with her tiny chihuahua Pilaf in a pouch on her front — designed, naturally, by Jones.
Moore walked down the Fendi runway for 2021, Jones’s other job being womenswear director and couture.
Jones, 49, said he was also slightly distracted by a redesign at his London home — printouts showed works by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud on his walls, along with a pile of first editions by Virginia Woolf and her handbag, evidence of his long-standing obsession with the Bloomsbury Group.
He was also checking out an Old Masters auction at Christie’s: “Just doing a bit of shopping,” he quipped. — AFP