As heroic homecomings go, it was pretty spectacular. Newly minted at The Fashion Awards as Designer of the Year, Dior’s Kim Jones crowned his success with his first London show since 2003, and proved exactly why he deserves that title.
The vast Olympia exhibition space was commandeered for his stadium-sized show, which Jones preluded with an exhibition of his large, private collection of Jack Kerouac first editions, as well as letters, correspondence and memorabilia of the writer and other members of the Beat Generation and those they inspired (including Allen Ginsberg’s credit card and a first pressing of the Velvet Underground and Nico album with its Warhol-designed banana cover art).
It represented years of obsessive and detailed collecting, and a desire to get close to his heroes and understand them on an intimate level. Jones commitment to his interests is sincere and runs deep. Perhaps that’s why he has become one of a handful of designers who can shift the zeitgeist and change the direction of fashion. And so it was with his Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation-inspired collection, which the show notes described as a “Celebration of ceaseless imagination, of the reinvention of craft, of new perspectives”.
Photography by Andrea Cenetiempo and Sophie Carre
A vast scroll printed with Kerouac’s stream of consciousness manuscript for On The Road, unrolled to carpet the catwalk. Published in 1957, its counter-cultural and anti-establishment themes heralded the rise of youth culture. Those new perspectives included a shift in silhouette, to boxier, 1950s-inflected shapes, rooted in classic American sportswear but tweaked for today’s casual mindset. It looked more rugged than previous Dior collections but even the most robust pieces were lavished with couture-level flair.
Trucker coats came in zingy bias-cut checks, Fair Isle knits and beanies were frosted with clear sequins and American football-style Dior jerseys came in printed silk. Even the iconic saddlebag design came in beefed-up proportions. Denim also played an important role, with ‘James Dean’ jeans cropped above the ankle worn with polished brogues or walking boots. “I wanted the collection to feel a little bit like a suitcase you might take on a road trip,” said the designer.
Collection photography by Jason Lloyd-Evans.
