Kim Jones, Dior designer: "we live in a bubble"
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"We live in cities, incredibly open, but once you step outside it's not the same anymore," Jones explains in an interview with AFP, in his studio in Paris.
"There are forty countries in the world where if you go out like this, they kill you," he adds, describing his will to dress men in a different, more feminized way.
For the autumn/winter collection that he presented this Friday in the French capital, Kim Jones offered a masculine version of the iconic women's Bar jacket, with which Christian Dior appeared in 1947, when couturiers created for women.
No one is surprised by such details anymore.
How the Dior man wears this fall
Dior men wear delicate pink sequins embroidered on their sweaters, jackets tied at the waist and baggy, generous trousers.
A blouse opens fully vertically on the model's back.
Kim Jones also bet on her Parisian show, held as usual in an impressive setting installed in the Tuileries Gardens, for an association with the shoe brand Birkenstock.
The couturier declined the characteristic open Birkenstock sneaker with gold accents, or tiny pins.
Last Tuesday it was the new Parisian Fashion Week brand Egonlab that was associated with the plastic sandals brand Crocs.
Dior rebuilt a balustrade on the elegant Alexander III Bridge in the heart of Paris for the catwalk to near life-size.
Alternating with the music, the legendary Christian Dior could be heard, in off, explaining in a period interview how he created his dresses.
World traveler
Jones, 42, grew up traveling hand in hand with his father, a geologist, so he has a pragmatic vision of the real world, outside the spectacularity of the catwalks.< blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
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— Yasir Bokhari Sat Apr 12 01:58:17 +0000 2014"I'm lucky, I grew up traveling all over the world so I've seen it all and I understand that we live in a bubble," he told AFP.
"If you travel to other places, you have to be respectful of their culture," he says.
Jones alternates his work at Dior with womenswear and haute couture for Fendi, since September 2020.
"Now that I make women's collections I realize the limits of the men's line," he says.
"Men's clothing hasn't changed much since the 1940s."
His current priority is to make the classic Dior models more comfortable, even in the midst of a pandemic.
"What people want now is convenience—I see it through sales, when I talk to customers, everywhere," he says.
That was the mark Jones left on Louis Vuitton between 2011 and 2018, when streetwear hit the runways.
As for work overload, Jones says she's not afraid of it: "I like working and right now I'm in a really good time," she says.
"The only problem for me now is the covid, because when I return home I have to isolate myself and keep myself isolated from everyone. I can't afford to lose 10 days," he explains.
He says he takes vacations every two months, to keep stress from getting to him.
"I'm not going to kill myself for these people. I'm not stupid!" he says with a laugh.
His spirits darken, however, when he remembers his friend and successor at Louis Vuiton, Virgil Abloh, who died of cancer last November, and whose final collection was presented this week in Paris.
"It's still hard for me to talk about it, I just can't believe it happened," she confesses.
"(Virgil and I) texted each other every week. We traveled the world together. We used to sit on the floor, in hotel rooms, to draw, together with Kanye (West), Pharrell (Williams).. I feel very lucky to have known him," he says.
"What a loss, with all I could have done," he laments aloud.
© 2022 AFP
