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#kris van assche archive
essentialhomme · 6 months
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lovefrenchisbetter · 5 months
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Old Dior Homme
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infinitycutter · 8 months
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dan witz for dior homme aw17
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fhuzee · 1 year
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Berluti Edge Derby By Kris Van Assche
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vampire-canneberge · 5 months
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from archive workbook of Kris van Assche
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teleleonela · 2 years
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mrsreinhart · 4 years
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Cole Sprouse’s People’s Choice Awards Suit Had a Hidden Message
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Two days ago, Riverdale star Cole Sprouse attended the People’s Choice Awards in Los Angeles while wearing a cyan twist on de facto (albeit shifting) red carpet male wardrobe tenets: a royal blue suit over a shirt and tie in matching sky blue. The whole thing came from Berluti, the Paris-based label founded in 1895 which is enjoying something of a renaissance under current designer Kris Van Assche.
Look close enough and one will see that—besides the slightly out-of-the-ordinary color palette—there was another visual motif at play: finite, handwritten script, woven into the jacket and pants’ azure jacquard fabric.
As it happens, the motif is a longstanding aesthetic staple at Berluti. The company calls it “Scritto,” and it appears on a number of items ranging from Sprouse’s red carpet look to leather belts to, at one point, inscriptions on watches.
The “Scritto” theme, which translates from Italian to English as “written,” is a keystone in Berluti’s visual oeuvre. Lore has it that the script features direct replications of antique letters collected by the Berluti family. Olga Berluti, for example, is said to have purchased a French letter dating from the 18th century to add to the house’s archives.
While Sprouse’s look wasn’t a massive departure from menswear’s red carpet norms, it further demonstrates that, even in a coat-and-tie, guys are starting to enjoy a bit more wiggle room—and to push the creativity forward. Shirts do not have to be white or striped or with a certain collar cut; they can have cloud-like marble prints. Blazers and sportcoats do not need to be black or gray or navy; they can feature reinterpretations of long-ago penmanship, layered into eye-popping color. And they, as Sprouse proves, can work very well.
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sleeprooom009125 · 4 years
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Archived Collection
2011 Spring/ Summer Kris van assche
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bigyack-com · 4 years
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The return of the dandy - fashion and trends
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Usually one wouldn’t expect opera-length gloves, pearls and bejewelled touches at Dior Men’s runway. However, over the last couple of seasons, designer Kim Jones has transmogrified the way we perceive the Dior man. He’s the new-age dandy, who rocks a tailleur oblique suit with a sliver of insouciance. He’s someone, who owns an embellished top coat and doesn’t shy away from sporting a solo earring. If fashion observers predicted the death of the suit and the rise of broken tailoring a few seasons ago, today, the transformative prowess of the closet chameleon can’t be ignored. Take a look at Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton where he sent out a panoply of pantsuits or the salt and pepper dudes at Junya Watanabe runway - all dressed up in extremely coveted patchworked coats.
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An embellished Dior Men coat by Kim JonesWhile one could easily attribute the rise of classic tailoring as fashion’s reaction to the all-pervading street wear, the sartorial message at the recently-concluded Milan and Paris shows was much deeper. Today’s luxury buyer has a strong sense of identity. He’s a daring dresser, who doesn’t shy away from borrowing a brooch from his grandmother’s closet. He refuses to be defined by his gender and sexuality and his clothing choices are more often than not a reflection of his mood. One day, he wants to be tailored up in a patina leather suit from Berluti and next day, he wants to unveil his softer side in a paisely lace coat from Ann Demeulemeester. Thumbing his nose at the toxic masculinity, he wants to stand out in a pair of pink pants teamed with a muave jumper and a tartan coat from Gucci. At the same time, he’s extremely comfortable in a sparkly jumper from Balmain. Decadent and dandy
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An ensemble from Dior Men by Kim Jones“After a few seasons of a sportswear boom, street-inspired menswear and a proclivity towards the easy, casual vibe, it’s fantastic to see menswear taking on a sharper direction, and a focus on tailoring. But it’s not like the strict tailoring codes that defined what’s ‘masculine’ in earlier times, but rather a celebration of independent and varied ideas and design details in menswear. It seems like menswear is breaking free from the shackles of its own definitions. I loved Kim Jones’ Autumn Winter 2020 menswear at Dior - I think it’s the most decadent (and dandy) collection by the house in years - it’s like updated British aristocratic style for today - with velvet trimmed top coat, jewelled accents and outerwear with sumptuous silver embellishments. It’s liberating, cool, sexy and so refreshing,” says stylist Vijendra Bhardwaj. The double breasted is back
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A double breasted ruffled coat from Louis Vuitton by Virgil AblohThe season also saw a return to double breasted tailoring with designers toying with suits, blazers and cocktail coats keeping the classic codes in mind. Designer Gaurav Khanijo observes that, “You have to go back in the past to move into the future. These pieces are tailored and minimal with a focus on detailing. I’ve observed that when men shop, they purchase less but buy smart. How I understand dandyism are clothes, which are sharper and sleeker accented by brooches. Also, it’s all about minimalist styling. Gucci too has toned down its maximalist way of showcasing pieces and I see ensembles getting more pared-down and tailored. Same is the case with Balmain and Alexander McQueen.”An emphasis on empowered clothing
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An ensemble from Gucci by Alesssandro MicheleModel Rahi Chadda who attended the Gucci menswear show hails the season’s offerings as a push on empowering clothing which can’t be categorised into masculine and feminine. “There has always been a clientele for classic tailoring and this time, they’ve amalgamated the age-old styles with an of-the-moment spirit. For example, Alexander McQueen’s suave and slick take with model sporting impeccably groomed hair and statement jewellery. The introduction of couture techniques in menswear and also inspiration from India especially the embroideries set the mood dressy mood this season,” says Rahi. Redefining masculinity Menswear experts opine that street wear saturated the fashion scene and to an extent people got fed up of broken tailoring and exaggerated shapes. Desginer Kunal Rawal says, “What I am loving is the fact that creative forces like Kim Jones are going back into the Dior archives and introducing couture touches. This season, the patina leather suit at Berluti by Kris Van Assche was one of my favourite looks. Alessandro Michele’s attempt to redefine masculinity at Gucci is commendable too. Today design houses are bringing out collections, which are inclusive, diverse and each piece of represents a unique personality.”
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A patina leather suit at Berluti by Kris Van Assche ( AFP ) Designer Anjali Patel Mehta of label Verandah hails Balmain for delivering a strong luxe statement. “There’s definitely a return to classic tailoring with brands embracing neo vintage with elan. Think sharp suiting, a clever play of layering and classic tones along with bejewelled accents.”
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A sparkly jumper by BalmainShe adds, “Businessman Chetan Jaikishan comes to mind instantly, who has always been one of the daring dandies in India, who’ve never shied away from taking sartorial risks. Fall Winter 2020 is all about one-of-its-kind pieces which emanate an unmistakable luxe appeal.” Follow @htlifestyle for more Read the full article
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essentialhomme · 6 months
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lovefrenchisbetter · 8 days
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Dior Homme Archives
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fhuzee · 6 months
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azeeshanfan · 5 years
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Suits you: Dior and Berluti top the class on Paris catwalk
PARIS: Two of fashion’s most gifted menswear designers gave a masterclass in tailoring on the Paris catwalk Friday.
Kim Jones showed why sales have shot up at Dior since he took over last year by hitting all the streetwear sweet spots while reinforcing the label’s reputation for effortless elegance.
Kris van Assche, his Dior Homme predecessor who moved on to revamp Berluti, produced a sharp and richly coloured spring summer collection with a co-ed twist.
Both had trousers worn longer than they have been for a few years, and paid homage to the suit, boot, shirt trinity of classic tailoring. But there all similarities ended.
While the Belgian turned up the colour volume, Jones bleeds it out to the bare minimum of bleached-out Dior egg-shell blues, pinks and silvery greys.
With an all-white replica of the brand founder Christian Dior’s office nestling in one corner of the vast set like a marbled relic of classical Greece, Jones went on an archaeological expedition through its archives to find the key to unlock the house’s fashion future.
Space age luxury 
Along the way Jones turned up some interesting and amusing artefacts of possible space age luxury such as a metallic Rimowa case that doubles as champagne cooler.
The designer conceived the set with American artist Daniel Arsham—who Jones said “looks at the present from the future”—with Dior written out in huge crushed stone letters.
But it was the clothes that made the real statement before a starry front row that included Kate Moss, Lilly Allen, Kelly Osbourne and no shortage of celebrity subplots, with Columbian reggaeton star J. Balvin seemingly confirming his romance with former Miss Argentina Valentina Ferrer.
With the colour so subtly muted everything was in the sculptural cut.
That also left room for a run of laboriously handmade deep blue and orange plisse shirts to do their magic.
Classic blue toile de Jouy pattern shirts and see-through news print variants were also given plenty of room to breath, matched with transparent rubber boots through which Jones had run with a new line of Dior socks.
“A lot of us in the studio are really obsessed by footwear,” Jones told AFP, and the idea that “you can dress head to toe in Dior”.
Berluti unbound 
While Jones went deep into Dior DNA, Van Assche cut loose at Berluti, with blocks of daring rich Yves Klein blue and ochre orange suits.
It takes a killer cut to get away with that kind of colour and the Belgian master upped the ante by lopping the sleeves off several of his suits and town coats for summer, as well as slitting the pencil trousers at the ankle.
With singer Ricky Martin in the front row, the Belgian sent sleek silver-fox older and female models in to mix it up on the catwalk with young bucks in Berluti brown leather suits.
Van Assche saved his big statement for the end with Gigi Hadid in a glorious mint green sleeveless double-breasted suit streaming with picked out marabou feathers.
“It’s a challenge for me reinventing myself and the DNA (of the brand),” he told reporters after the show.
“I refuse to think Berluti should always be about the timeless luxury. It is also supposed to be for now,” he added.
The post Suits you: Dior and Berluti top the class on Paris catwalk appeared first on ARYNEWS.
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earlysouth · 5 years
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Item #0021 SS15 Dior Menswear Pants 📝 The Letter Campaign ! Kris Van Assche opened his Dior Homme show today with three tuxedos in the same vibrant shade of blue mohair. The first was classic, the second was straight fashion, the third was edgy fashion (cropped, with a toggle fastening in anticipation of the show's nautical subtext). The trio immediately established the dialogue between bohemia and bourgeois that would dominate the collection. #grailed #archives #pants #showroom #dior #krisvanassche #earlysouth (at Paris, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsYnmOaA2mP/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=12sa468uzqxk9
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ladystylestores · 4 years
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Berluti Men’s Spring 2021 – WWD
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Kris Van Assche is not the improvising type, so when the Berluti offices went into lockdown in March, he took a while to find his bearings.
But after getting an office set up at home, the designer known for his precise and methodical approach found inspiration in something decidedly more instinctive and unpredictable: the flamboyant creations of U.S. sculptor Brian Rochefort.
Van Assche is a ceramics collector himself, starting off with the classic Fifities French Modernist styles that sit well alongside his Pierre Jeanneret furniture. But he also has one of Rochefort’s oversized vessels, which drip and bulge with color and texture.
In a first for Berluti, Van Assche has collaborated with Rochefort on his spring 2021 collection, translating the patterns of the sculptures into vibrantly patterned silk shirts, densely textured knits and flecked patina motifs on the brand’s signature shoes.
Berluti Men’s Spring 2021  Franck Mura/WWD
“He himself describes himself as a slap-in-the-face kind of a ceramics artist, which I think is very funny, and which I think is also quite appropriate for these times because in the end, what I wanted with this collection is that it would almost be a kind of a slap in the face of joy, color, something light, something cheerful,” he said in a preview with WWD.
The designer will discuss the project with Rochefort in a video to be unveiled on instagram.com/berluti and youtube.com/berluti at 5 p.m. Paris time on Thursday.
“I didn’t feel like trying to do a fake fashion show because I don’t believe in a similar emotion through a video screen. So I said, I might as well do the total opposite and take the time to explain, to actually even introduce people to the artist, the inspiration, the working process, all the things that I never really get the chance to show on a runway,” he explained.
Van Assche noted that Berluti’s know-how, condensed in its state-of-the-art “manifattura” in Ferrara, Italy, is often lost in the blur of an eight-minute runway show. “So I think this is a good occasion for that, because now it starts with the explanation and the pictures come after,” he said.
The lookbook for collection will be released in December, just before it lands in stores in January. There will be several drops, and Berluti also plans to unveil a new collection of essentials in late February or early March.
Berluti Men’s Spring 2021  Franck Mura/WWD
After two years at the house, which is owned by luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Van Assche feels confident in the style he has established and thought the time was right to open up the brand to an outside creative talent.
“There is very little archive at Berluti – the archive is basically the shoes – so it’s important now for me to bring in other influences,” he explained. “Usually people collaborate to break open the brand to a bigger audience. I kind of like, at Berluti, that we would introduce our public to a more niche, underground idea of collaboration.”
While he’s keen to return to the runway soon, working under the limitations of the coronavirus pandemic has allowed Van Assche to further tighten his focus.
“This is definitely a new reality, for sure, with quite a lot of downsides, because I will miss the fashion week. But there is also something quite challenging in adapting and trying to make the best of it,” he said. “And I’m really happy about what this looks like, so the editing is also quite interesting in the creative process.”
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dippedanddripped · 6 years
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Every great label lives in the shadow of its founder. At Dior’s most recent menswear show, presented in the barracks of Paris’ horseback cavalry, la Garde républicaine, that fact is writ large. Kim Jones, the newly minted menswear artistic director of the fashion house, commissioned artist Brian Donnelly — better known as KAWS — to lend his street art stylings to Dior for the season. One of KAWS’ contributions is a 10-meter tall floral statue of the house’s founder, Christian Dior.
Comprising 70,000 flowers in vibrant pink, crisp white, and stark black, it is the artist’s rendition of Mr. Dior as filtered through KAWS’ “BFF” character, a furry, four-fingered, Muppet-esque figure with a button nose and Xs for pupils. In his hand, he holds a white perfume bottle in the shape of Mr. Dior’s dog, Bobby — a reference to a limited-edition Miss Dior perfume bottle from 1952. And here, in the shadow of Mr. Dior and his Bobby bottle, Jones is about to establish a new era at Dior Men’s.
Born in London in 1979, Jones experienced a life of constant travel from an early age. His father was a hydrogeologist who brought the family along to far-flung locales such as Tanzania, Kenya, Ecuador, and the Amazon — with brief periods of respite in London in between. The designer still considers Africa his second home, and Jones recalls that it was in Botswana where he saw the first garment he ever loved: a T-shirt bearing the photo of a lion.
At 14, he considered following in his father’s footsteps in zoology or conservation, but thanks to an adolescence spent obsessing over his sister’s treasure trove of fashion magazines, he switched toward something in the nebulous field where culture and creativity intersect. His collector’s instinct started to manifest back then, too, with the young Jones collecting vintage Levi’s pieces and getting exposed to London’s bustling subcultural scene, discovering designers such as Vivienne Westwood along the way. Today, Jones’ collection spans an impressive archive of ’80s London clubwear from designers and brands including Westwood, Rachel Auburn, Stephen Linard, and Modern Classics.
In addition to pieces from Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Christopher Nemeth, he once confessed in a 2016 interview with Designboom that he owns more than 500 sneakers, many of which are Nike models such as the Air Huarache and Air Jordans.
Jones and his friends had trouble finding clothing they liked, so took a DIY approach in the vein of the punk movement spearheaded by Malcolm McLaren and Westwood. He took these designs to Louise Wilson, the late head of fashion at prestigious art school Central Saint Martins, who offered him a place in the program. At the same time, Jones had been offered his first job in the industry by Michael Kopelman, an early member of the International Stüssy Tribe and founder of streetwear distributor Gimme Five. Jones’ earliest duties involved unpacking boxes of Supreme gear among others for distribution to some of London’s most prescient stores. One such place was The Hideout, an ahead-of- its-time boutique run by Kopelman and Fraser Cooke, who currently oversees Nike’s buzziest collaborations and is responsible for bringing the likes of UNDERCOVER’s Jun Takahashi and Jones himself under the Swoosh’s fashion-forward umbrella.
But before that, Jones was already generating buzz with his graduate collection in 2002. It caught the eye of designer John Galliano, who bought half of the collection. A year later, Jones made his debut at London Fashion Week, selling a prized Vivienne Westwood parachute shirt on eBay to fund the collection. Even then, Jones’ penchant for integrating sportswear and subculture into his clothes shone through, mining ’90s youth culture and rave festivals for inspiration.
Dior / Archive / Sophie Carre
These influences were manifested in cropped Peruvian stripe bomber jackets, ombré-dyed denim, and collared bombers with a tribal print motif. His penchant for rip-and-repair garments resulted in bicolor trousers in contrasting pink pastel tones and deep purple hues, patchwork pants, and material-blocked dropped-crotch nylon track pants styled with Nike Terminator high-tops.
He established codes that mixed what was happening in streetwear with runway-worthy garments, catching the eye of Uniqlo, Hugo Boss, Topshop, and Umbro. With the latter he designed a capsule collection for several seasons until 2007 and worked on a 2005 football jersey collaboration with Supreme. In 2008, he was appointed creative director of storied British tailoring house Dunhill, revitalizing the label’s menswear with a worldly, casual universe of clothes. Zippers replaced button closures, humble coach jackets were elevated with premium fabrics, and sportcoats were reinterpreted into garments resembling Japanese kimonos. Three years into his tenure, he departed for Louis Vuitton.
His seven-year career at Vuitton took a house predominantly known for its status-symbol accessories and made it a formidable player in the menswear space. Jones’ peripatetic design codes aligned perfectly with a fashion house that already appealed to the jet set. He introduced a line of premium fleece pieces in Fall/Winter 2014 that melded Patagonia staples with high-end branded hardware. In Fall/Winter 2015, he revisited the work of one of his favorite designers, Christopher Nemeth, who moved from London to Tokyo in 1986 and died aged 51 in 2010, creating a line of covetable pieces utilizing Nemeth’s signature artistic prints. Jones revered the late Nemeth’s prescience in melding Savile Row with street-ready silhouettes — and it’s a torch he seems to have picked up.
No collection signified that more than Fall/Winter 2017, which saw an unprecedented collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Supreme. To some, it signified the death knell of streetwear, but for Jones, it was a natural progression for two labels that have come to represent two sides of the same coin — creating products that are coveted the world over, yet remain inaccessible to all but a select, extremely lucky few (and those with enough cash to fork over the exorbitant asking price).
“You wear clothes in the street, so everything’s streetwear. You can wear a couture gown down the street and that turns it into streetwear.”
“I get so bored of that term ‘streetwear,’” says Jones. Right now he’s backstage at the Summer 2019 Dior Men’s show, walking through the collection and examining the final looks before they’re revealed to the world on the runway. “You wear clothes in the street, so everything’s streetwear. You can wear a couture gown down the street and that turns it into streetwear.”
Indeed, perhaps the term “streetwear” is redundant. Jones brings up one of his favorite designers today, Jun Takahashi of UNDERCOVER, as an example. Takahashi’s acclaimed label often toes the line between punk-infused rip-and-repair garments and graphic-driven pieces with a subversive bent. Earlier in the week, Takahashi held his first-ever menswear fashion show, which Jones attended. The two are friends and share a mutual admiration.
“His work is fashion. I think it’s wrong to put that in the bracket of ‘streetwear’ — it’s just good design,” says Jones. “It’s 2018. You’ve got to be realistic about what people wear.”
Jones’ realistic approach to the commercial side of Dior’s menswear balances out with a new universe he’s establishing in this first season. First off, he’s renamed the label from “Dior Homme” to the simpler “Dior Men’s.” Dior Homme’s previous designers, Hedi Slimane and Kris Van Assche, left a legacy of predominantly noirish clothes with a dark, somewhat gothic edge. Jones has rewritten the rules with his first collection, equal parts inspired by Mr. Dior’s love of nature and flora and a desire to blend the worlds of Dior’s womenswear and menswear.
“Each house I work with, I use different codes and DNA,” he says. “Dior is a tailoring brand, essentially, and we want to be very chic.” Of course, to Jones, “tailoring” means much more than traditional suiting. Plenty of the pieces in his debut collection utilize precious materials and techniques to give classic sportswear garments like bomber jackets, topcoats, and T-shirts a decidedly more artisanal (and slightly femme) look and feel. The Dior Homme logo has been replaced with an older design, a sleeker all-caps “DIOR” that also appears on its womenswear, further cementing the connection between Jones’ line and the women’s collections designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri.
“There’s something utilitarian about Dior,” he says. “It’s a little bit romantic I guess, but in a very sporty way.”
Jones takes an archival suit silhouette pairing a double-breasted jacket and voluminous trousers and renders them in a muted pink, referencing Mr. Dior’s childhood home, and another in a bright yellow. This color, and other garments with gold flecks on them, are a sly nod to French poet Jean Cocteau, who once described Christian Dior as an “agile genius of our times whose magical name contains ‘dieu’ and ‘or,’” the word “dieu” meaning “god” and “or” meaning “gold.”
One of the recurring motifs is the toile de jouy pattern designed by Victor Grandpierre in 1947 for the original Dior boutique, repurposed as embroidery and jacquard on shorts, sheer tops, and a technical organza used as a layer on a bomber jacket emblazoned with embroidered bees of KAWS’ design. It’s one of the artist’s many reinterpretations of the house’s codes in the collection, and like most of Jones’ collection, will demand a significant price.
Jones is a designer who makes fashion with a capital “F” and Dior is a house that specializes in luxury with a capital “L.” Both words mean something different than they did two years ago. In an era of waning dress codes and upscale casual clothing, a product’s price tag is tied more to its provenance, earned through years of making consistently good product — or to its hype, where the rabid demand far outweighs the scarce supply. Fashion and luxury are malleable terms that can be applied as much to a covetable sneaker (of which there are many in Dior’s latest collection) as to a denim trucker jacket embroidered with KAWS for Dior bees.
“There’s something utilitarian about Dior… It’s a little bit romantic I guess, but in a very sporty way.”
“Today, via the internet and Instagram, people adhere to brands, not only by products, but also by the values of culture and know-how,” Dior chief executive Pietro Beccari told French newspaper Le Figaro in June. “They want to hear beautiful stories. The Dior house has a lot to tell.”
It’s appropriate that Jones is at the forefront of LVMH’s golden goose — The New York Times reported in 2017 that Dior holds 41 percent of the share capital and 56.8 percent of the voting rights within the conglomerate. Beccari, like Jones, is a realist about the way people dress today. It’s possible to make sportswear as desirable and elegant as an expensive, one-of-a-kind couture creation, and if you can make the right emotional connection with a potential client, they’ll gladly pay the asking price.
What Jones brings to the table is an ability to meld the impulsive part of the lizard brain, the part that covets new products, with the elevated execution of a designer who knows how to rework the existing codes of a fashion house. If streetwear is a movement built largely on placing high fashion in a different, more accessible context, Jones is able to take that energy to an esteemed house like Dior without having to compromise on quality or worry about things like price points. It has also afforded him the opportunity to bring some friends along the way. Streetwear, after all, was a bustling community of like-minded creatives before it was an industry.
“You want to work with people you like,” says Jones. “I got Matthew Williams to design the buckles for me because I really love his brand. I’ve got Yoon [Ahn] working with me also, and I commissioned KAWS to design the bee.”
KAWS and Jones have been on each other’s radar for quite some time, and both also work with Nike on sought-after collaborations. The two had been in touch prior to Jones’ appointment at Dior, and when it came to Jones’ debut show, he couldn’t think of a better person to help make a statement.
“I’ve always wanted to work with KAWS,” says Jones. “I think it’s nice that he’s the first person I’d work with at Dior because I love his work. For me, for the generation that’s coming up now, he’s the most important artist in the world.”
Before KAWS built the statue for the show (and a smaller rendition that lives in Dior’s showroom), the artist was commissioned to design plush “BFF” toys decked out in Dior Baby clothing, a sub-line KAWS didn’t even know existed. On Jones’ Instagram in the days leading up to the show, he posted a plethora of celebrities, including A$AP Rocky, Kate Moss, and even Louis Vuitton’s new men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh, posing with the two stuffed toys.
KAWS admits he was initially hesitant to move forward with the sculpture, as art world timelines are much more forgiving than those in fashion, and was impressed that Dior could pull together such a massive undertaking in a matter of months. In addition to the Dior bee motif, KAWS also remade the Dior logo in his own style, and a variety of his works show up again in the accessories collection, spearheaded by designer Yoon Ahn of cult Japanese jewelry label AMBUSH.
Ahn’s approach to the accessories line is complementary to the cavalcade of colors in Jones’ collection. KAWS’ bee and Mr. Dior BFF reappear as studded pendants and high-end keychains. Chunky, iridescent letters refashioned into rings spell out “DIOR,” and there are even plush keychains depicting Mr. Dior’s dog Bobby tie-dyed in psychedelic colors. Tying into Jones’ desire to bring more elements of womenswear into the collection, this is the first season that Dior’s best-selling saddle bag has been recontextualized into the men’s offering, appearing as soft leather side bags, pouches, backpacks, and other elegant luggage pieces.
/ Milan Vukmirovic
“You want to work with people you like… I got Matthew Williams to design the buckles for me because I really love his brand. I’ve got Yoon [Ahn] working with me also, and I commissioned KAWS to design the bee.”
Notably, many of the new bags, belts, and even baseball caps feature custom buckles designed by Matthew Williams of 1019 ALYX 9SM, a nascent label known for its Rollercoaster belts inspired by chunky, tactical quick-release COBRA buckles.
“Kim and I had been friends a long time, and he was somebody that really mentored me and motivated me to start my own brand,” says Williams.
After Williams’ first season, he gifted Jones one of his backpacks featuring 1019 ALYX 9SM’s custom buckles, and Jones loved it. For Dior, Williams has designed several buckles that meld the utilitarian appeal of the originals with the elevated branding of Dior. In one instance, he turns Christian Dior’s “C” and “D” initials into an interlocking buckle. It features on a baseball cap that London grime artist Skepta wore to the show.
“He gave me, like, two months to make these buckles, and I just pulled it together for him,” Williams says.
Jones might define streetwear merely as clothes people wear on the street, but his approach to Dior Men’s has much more in common with the mindset of the culture’s progenitors. He’s designing clothing for people with a specific mindset, and he’s tapped some of his high-profile creative friends to fashion covetable products they might not have been able to create on their own.
“The visibility of a lot of the people that started off more modestly in streetwear has changed,” says KAWS. “The world has definitely noticed and things just keep growing. But what’s unique about a company like Dior is the craftsmanship. I was blown away at the speed at which things can be made and the integrity put into them. That’s not common.”
The shift in consumer desire and what cultivates a passion for product is not lost on Jones. He’s fully aware of the dichotomy of balancing a consistent vision for a brand with creating new commercial hits season after season. That’s why introducing the saddle bag for men alongside several new sneaker silhouettes is telling. After all, more and more men (and women) have been sporting fanny packs and waist bags from streetwear brands and luxury labels alike.
“It’s more than menswear… People want to buy clothes that they can wear all the time.”
Sneakers have become a status symbol for men and women, so it’s not far-fetched to think Jones sees a future in which a Dior purse gets a second life as a must-have men’s accessory, especially when it has a Williams-designed buckle. “It” brands and “it” products ebb and flow season after season, but pieces like that have the potential to become longtime grails.
“It’s more than menswear,” as Jones puts it. “People want to buy clothes that they can wear all the time.”
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