BEHIND THE SCENE AT DIOR SS24 MENSWEAR SHOW IN PARIS

BEHIND THE SCENE AT DIOR SS24 MENSWEAR SHOW IN PARIS

Credit: Alfredo Piola

From the feminine to the masculine, from the salon to the street, from the new look to new wave. A collage of influences and pop iconography takes shape at the heart of this Dior summer 2024 line dreamed up by Kim Jones, simultaneously embracing tradition and subversion. Conceived as a multi-faceted tribute to Dior icons via different eras and the house’s Artistic Directors, the collection draws on the silhouettes created by Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré and Marc Bohan, reinterpreted and transformed.

Infusing all is a sense of crisp, playful modernity, practicality and ease. The appearance of archetypal menswear items – such as the harrington, polo shirt, crew neck and cardigan – is transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary, through symbolic techniques that traverse time and styles at dior: tweeds, embroideries and cannage. Punctuating the looks, a multiplicity of bags in a variety of shapes, colors and textures range from extravagant to sober. A passionate dialogue between heritage and reinvention(s).

“Dior is an Haute Couture house: it is all about the clothes. At the heart of Dior is silhouette, shape, technique and fabrication of the very highest order. I like to think that in my five years of being here – this is my fifth-anniversary show and collection – I have never forgotten this. It’s a culture we have inherited from womenswear past and applied to menswear present. And for the first time in our collections, it is a collage of influences from different Dior predecessors and eras we wanted to pay tribute to at once – together with some of our own. All are connected through texture and technique alongside some of the Dior pop icons, particularly the cannage.” – Kim Jones

A collage of influences and pop iconography takes shape in a mechanical garden of ‘Hommes Fleurs’, simultaneously embracing tradition and subversion: from the feminine to the masculine; from the salon to the street; FROM THE NEW LOOK TO THE NEW WAVE.

An amalgam of autobiographies joins Kim Jones’ own in this, his fifth-anniversary collection and show at Dior. While once more, it is Yves Saint Laurent’s silhouettes that hold sway and are mainly drawn upon for the artistic director’s summer offering, transposed and transformed. The men’s histories intertwine with a melding of the masculine and feminine, with british tailoring traditions and materials meeting that of the haute couture tailleur, revealing the roots of womenswear fabrications in the men’s world after all.