Kim Jones stayed away from the unabashedly feminine for Dior’s menwear. But he could not resist sweet, delicate embellishments. Cabochon on cardi. And, the odd, tacky leopard print

One thing that can be said with some confidence is that this season, the Dior presentation was not overshadowed by the other LVMH hyped-to-bits event earlier in the week, variously described by the media as “epic”. Kim Jones need not fear that the attention was directed entirely to fellow LVMH employee Pharrell Williams. That over-a-river show might have been bigger and snazzier, and livelier, but Mr Jones’s Dior is not less arresting. In fact, in the clinical starkness of its bare-wall-and-floor setting, the show allowed the clothes—minus the former’s overload of varicoloured accessories—to be viewed undistracted. This was possibly Mr Jones’s (visually) tightest collection to date, without romantic references to his literary heroes.

And this was so in a set that could pass off for a Hollywood depiction of the space in which an almighty operates—free from the material, but not the mortal. In a purpose-built shoe box—erected outside the Louis XV-founded École Militaire (military school)—that was coloured the cool gray of the house, the models emerged from beneath the grit floor, all at once, through a hatchway that probably no one thought was there. In an era when AI could do practically everything, this might have been the staging of a higher intelligence not related to ours. But it was not. As robotic as the proceedings went (even the models appeared rather droid-like), the clothes was, by contrast, softer, more fluid, and imbued with palpable emotions. It helped, too, that Primal Scream’s emotive, swirling, non-hip-hop, Glastonbury-worthy 1991 single Higher Than the Sun soundtracked the show.

It is tempting to compare Mr Jones’s work to Mr Williams’s (however unfair or unnecessary some might think that to be), since the former once designed LV men’s line. In fact, Mr Williams even paid homage to the British designer by nodding to the latter’s past LV input, even as far back as autumn/winter 2012. However splendidly many thought Mr Jones shaped LV’s menswear, before the brand embraced a larger Black audience, it has been with Dior that he effected the most potent influence. We have never been enamoured with Dior—even the women’s line—but it is observable that Mr Jones has gone from strength to strength, even when he has yet to achieve real breakthrough. His version of couture elegance meets street hotchpotch continues to bridge both sides. He has used the maison’s tailoring to say something, usually about what constitutes smartness.

And this season, that expression was articulated without being verbose. We like how relaxed the suits were, and how the pants of some looked even more relaxed—samfu-leg-length, almost Forest Gump-geeky. Just as Mr Williams looked at the work of his predecessors, Mr Jones too examined the Dior masters of the past—Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré, and Marc Bohan—to interpret the suit. We can understand the suit’s appeal, but we are not sure what, amid rising global temperatures (and how many attendees were fanning themselves), that much layering of what Dior called “summer ensembles”, including visibly thick, jacquard knits in the house’s cannage repeated pattern, really communicates. Kim Jones brought back one article of clothing that has lost much of its original appeal—the polo shirt, but the Dior versions are cropped and, in some, bejewelled (and not worn on its own). In fact, stones as decorative bits were rather prominent, even on cardis (such as one paired with the polo as a twin set). What, however, upset the balance of cool and chic is the appearance of leopard spots. Sure, it’s the maison’s ‘Mitzah’ print, but now also very ‘Heena’ of the Jungle.

Screen shot: Dior/YouTube. Photos: Dior