For FW22, Kim Jones Made Dior's "New Look" New Again
Christian Dior's design DNA runs through Kim Jones's latest outing for the house, a Fall/Winter 2022 menswear collection celebrating the maison's 75th anniversary.
Free of the bells and whistles that have tended to clutter Jones's past work for Dior, his new range was a straightforward reinterpretation of house codes including the bar jacket and "cannage" quilting.
The former, a Dior signature tailored to accentuate the waist and hips, was fitted to create the illusion of an hourglass figure on the rather straight, curve-less silhouette of the male body.
Skimming the waist and flaring out at the hips, Jones's take on the bar jacket smacked as a contemporary reinterpretation of Dior's cinched New Look.
Offsetting the body-conscious fit of Jones's outwear, relaxed sweats and slouchy, ultra-luxe takes on the carpenter pant offered more casual options.
As for Dior's cannage, a quilting technique applied to the Lady bag and other popular accessories, Jones whipped up patent leather jackets and coats topstitched with the criss-cross pattern.
There were other plenty of other references to Monsieur Dior's influence — a nod to the founder's love of gardening, button-downs were worn under sheer sheaths delicately embroidered with bloom-shaped sequins and beads. There was also Jones's much-buzzed-about Birkenstock collaboration, which included a flower-embroidered take on the footwear giant's Tokio clog.
Another green-thumbed touch, one model clutched a leather bag molded to perfectly fit a bouquet of roses.
Bolstering Jones's back-to-basics approach to references this season, he enlisted Stephen Jones — milliner to Dior since 1996 — to craft sleek, pincushion-like berets.
