Set within a garden of delights that stretched across time and continents, Kim Jones latest collection for Dior has continued to weave together a tapestry of archival and biographical details pulled from his own English heritage and the personal life of the maison’s founder, Christian Dior. For Dior Men’s Summer 2023, this alchemy found its footing in a recreation of Monsieur Dior’s villa in Granville, Normandy, and Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Charleston farmhouse in Sussex, where Jones revealed a menswear in full bloom.
It was a disarmingly brilliant way of bringing together multiple threads of influence. From the Bloomsbury Group’s infamous bohemian, gender-fluid lifestyle collective artistic practices that allowed Jones to continue his exploration of Dior’s signature couture motifs for a menswear to the practical elements of gardening that informed the technical fabrications and pragmatic detailing of outdoor clothing. Outside of the atelier where he perfected his artistry as a couturier, Monsieur Christian Dior’s other big love was gardening and the flowers he grew and cultivated at his villa in Granville, Normandy, inspired some of the most memorable motifs of the maison, motifs that Jones has been incorporating and translating into the menswear universe. The result was a playful melange that was as seamless as it was still distinct in its references, in a way that only Jones knows how to deliver.
Overall was the symbolism of nature in the elegant apiarist hats, Dior gumboots and gardening clogs (the Birkenstock collab should have been a warning of the direction that Jones’ mind was heading) but it also went beyond the backyard and into the wild, a place that Jones has throughout his career continually paid high homage to. Outerwear for trekking, double-layered shorts perfect for a hike (and accompanying footwear) along with camo-jackets, backpacks and fleeces had the energy of a young adventurer about to hit the trails. The next phase of glamping? Paintings by Grant, owned by Jones, adorned knitwear and sheer tops – this season’s collectible wearable art.
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