Kim Jones‘ sensational Dior Men collection is exactly what happens when a designer is unburdened from another super-demanding job (meaning Fendi, the Roman brand where the British designer just couldn’t find his rhythm). This autumn-winter 2025 menswear collection was evidently thoroughly considered and planned, like an haute couture outing. The most stunning silhouette was either a trouser nor a skirt. It was a coat, worn backward, with the collar creating a kind of asymmetric cummerbund, the tucked-in sleeves forming “pockets,” and buttons running down the back. The silk-ribbon blindfold some of the models wore gave a pinch of extra-seduction. If only Dior womenswear was this good. Maybe when – as the rumor has it – Jonathan Anderson takes helm?
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This year, Fendi celebrates its 100 years. Maybe that was the reason for Kim Jones to finally deliver a good collection for the brand. What kept it cohesive was the combination of house craft, toned-down color palette, and an attitude that stemmed from the jazz-age modernism of the 1920s. The embroidered flapper-dresses worked nicely with all the streamlined minimalism. Still, looking at the taupe shirt-dress, one just wonders what differs Fendi from Max Mara? Except for Baguette, pretty much nothing. It would be great to see some fun back at the brand, a Karl Lagerfeld-ian wit.
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“I wanted the collection to feel quite graphic rather than romantic because I was thinking about Fendi and how, under Karl, there was always an element of ‘futurism,’” Kim Jones said of his latest haute couture collection. “I didn’t go back to look at what Karl did, but I like to take the essence of it.” This couture collection landed especially well, because Jones didn’t base his concept on a specific Karl Lagerfeld collection that much. This was finally a Jones for Fendi collection, not a dig into the archives. The designer developed trompe l’oeil decorativeness of an unexpected kind, which appeared to be one of the biggest highlight from this very streamlined, sharp collection. “We wanted to do fur, but without using fur or fake fur,” he said. “So we’ve done it with embroidery instead.” Embroidered with miniscule filaments, and sewn in densely overlapping rippling formations, the results are feather-like and feather-light to wear, be it as a coat, dress, or pencil-skirt. There’s also something for the couture-minimalists: the opening look was as spare and reduced as could be, specifically a black, strapless calf-length column Jones called “a box-dress.”
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Autumn-winter 2024 collection might be Kim Jones‘ finest endeavor to date at Dior Men. There were 40 ready-to-wear looks and 20 couture, and according to the show notes, through the idea Rudolf Nureyev’s personal life and onstage persona, Jones explored an “idea of two lives lived … the world of the couture reflects the extravagance of his stage presence, of Nureyev’s flamboyance, insolence and elegance”. With the theatrical staging and dramatic soundtrack – a “revisiting” of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, courtesy of modern day composer Max Richter – in the background, Jones delivered a line-up that not only mused on Nureyev’s style, but also yet again gracefully told a story of queer experience. The ballet dancer’s off-duty, 70s style of zip-up suits was replicated in zipped wool jumpsuits in shades of dove-grey. The magnificent silver uchikake kimono was based on one Nureyev – a collector of vintage textiles – owned. It apparently took 10 craftspeople in Japan three months to complete. The garments were embellished with pearls or awed with the richness of croc-embossed leather. Sheer, metallic mesh tops with floor-sweeping veils were worn with louchely tailored trousers and overcoats with crystal embroideries. Some models wore velvet headwraps; the footwear was all about, you guessed it, ballet shoes. Interestingly, Jones and Nureyev have a brief, yet crucial family connection: Jones’s uncle was the ballet dancer and photographer Colin Jones, whose pictures of Nureyev, driving, reading, chatting on the phone, as well as dancing, formed a book left on each seat for the show’s guests. This outing was definitely one of the most enchanting moments of the menswear Paris Fashion Week, along with phenomenal Rick Owens’ at-home show.
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At first, I thought that Kim Jones‘ Fendi collection for spring-summer 2024 is mediocre. But when Alexander Fury wrote that this is exactly what the Fendi woman should look like, I had a second glance at it. Jones isn’t reinventing the wheel at the brand, but he’s certainly building a contemporary and very coherent vision of the house and its client. Never fussy, rather understated, but not “just” minimal. Yesterday’s chapter was informed by Karl Lagerfeld’s spring 1999 show for the house and its powerful practicality drew from the Roman women – not least the Fendis and their closest professional cohorts – with whom Jones interacts when serving this brand. His collection was acutely and minutely designed to generate impact through detail, fit and finish. Mannish mohair tailoring (including skirts) was stripped of all visible closures and fittings, then cut with arms designed to be turned up, plus waistbands switched inside out, as if snaffled from a minimalist uomo’s wardrobe. Knitwear blouses, cardigans, skirts and dresses were architecturally entangled with each other against the body, creating striking new forms from conventional ingredients. Rib knits were expanded into a sort of jumbo-jumbo shearling corduroy, slightly flocked, used in a section of oversized work shirts, coats and split skirts. A paper-like, shiny-finish linen was used to fashion a cut-away dress in the same canary yellow that featured in that Lagerfeld collection 24 years ago. Nostalgic, but not daunting; rather, nostalgia that looks towards the future.
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