Despite being fascinated with the culture of Japanese dress, Monsieur Christian Dior never actually visited the Land of The Rising Sun. During his lifetime, it served as one of his inexhaustible sources of inspiration, with six thousand miles standing between his Paris atelier and the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. In many ways, today’s Dior Pre-Fall 2019 men’s show served as a homecoming for the Maison. And so Kim Jones embodied the spirit of Monsieur Dior, as sort of a proxy for his love and aspirations that were directed to the East. A global traveller himself, this was definitely not Kim’s first time in Japan, which was absolutely obvious from the masterfully put-together collection that walked down the circular catwalk. It curved around an 11-metre-tall robot sculpture, as imagined by Hajime Sorayama, Japanese contemporary artist known for his futuristic visuals of sex doll robots.
The whole scenography looked like a corner taken from Fritz Lang’s 1927 flick Metropolis. But unlike Lang’s, Kim Jones’ wasn’t a story of a dystopia – it was a utopian community where the past and future lives in harmony. The cherry blossom prints and Obi-like jacket fastenings were accompanied by reflective nylons, metallic buckles (designed by Alyx’s Matthew Williams) and chunky jewellery (created by Yoon Ahn of Ambush). Equal respect was paid to heritage as it was to all the new ideas and concepts in Kim Jones’ mind. The silhouettes were a natural progression of his first collection for the French fashion house, updated to reflect his current state of mind. The tailoring was without a single flaw, each shape more desirable than the previous one – a pure showcase of craftsmanship interpreted by a street-savvy brain such as the one of Mister Jones.
In short, the Dior Pre-Fall 2019 men’s show was a total masterpiece that deserved its own day, week, even month. As the first ever major Pre-Fall show dedicated to solely menswear, and the brand’s first Pre-Fall men’s show, this one will be talked about for years to come. Luxury at its finest – Dior is big in Japan.
