A pair of mysterious eyes and the words "With their own light and lash I have drawn them" appeared on a tactical armour-like vest that opened Dior's menswear show that took place yesterday, during Paris Fashion Week. From a distance you may have thought the decorative motif was printed, but this arty mosaic was actually hand-embroidered using tiny and shiny beads, a technique borrowed from Haute Couture.
As the collection progressed, Creative Director Kim Jones made other references to the codes, semantics and techniques of high fashion.
Coats and jackets were perfectly cut (diagonal cuts prevailed especially in the jackets of Jones' Tailleur Oblique), but they were remixed with a romantic element borrowed from Haute Couture – a fluid satin or velvet sash-scarf. At times the sashes crossed the body and wrapped on one side, spilling on the floor; at others they were seamlessly integrated into jumpers. Masculine tailoring was combined with a feminine touch: one flowed into the next, fluidly, without creating any harsh juxtapositions.
The trick – moulage – that is draping directly on the body came directly from Haute Couture, but Jones also looked at the cut of a 1955 dress in the archives of the house for this collection.
Further references to Dior and couture were to be spotted in the cropped short-sleeved animal print mink jackets matched with long opera-length gauntlets.
There was also an art collaboration as Jones enlisted American artist Raymond Pettibon, more famous for having created the logo for punk band Black Flag (yes, the four black bars) and the cover art for Sonic Youth's 1990 album "Goo".
For Jones this was an opportunity to continue the arty dialogue that started in December in Tokyo with Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama, who provided the prints for the Pre-Fall collection.
If you know Pettibon you will also know that the opening tactical armour-like vest that opened the Dior show replicated a drawing that the artist uses as his Twitter avatar (View this photo).
But the artist also vandalised an archival Dior leopard print and transformed it into a drip effect replicated on a jumper and came up with a Mona Lisa figure printed on a top and hand-embroidered on the shirt that closed the show. The latter took 1,600 hours and 12 petites mains to make it.
Materials - double-faced cashmere, silk, satins - and some of the shades from the main palette (think dove grey and a soothing lilac that merged with mauve) were also borrowed from Haute Couture.
Jones didn't forget to add a few technical and sporty touches for luxury fans who may be into trends, but may not be into couture: there were nylon spats, backpacks and Saddle bags (also in the pocket-size version), accessories for smartphones (again with Pettibon's printed motifs) and pieces that looked like elegant versions of utilitarian workwear (the tabard-like vests were actually inspired by the many statues around Paris that wear armours).
The setting (the show took place in a black tent at the foot of the Eiffel Tower) was suspended between the future and the past: models stood still like statues on a 250-foot-long conveyor belt that carried them. It may have been a reference to a not so distant fashion future, with a factory printing the perfect clothes and the perfect human(oids), but it actually was a representation of early high fashion shows, with models perfectly posing in the couture salon.
There was no message involving politics, even though the show had to be anticipated to Friday to avoid possible disruptions from the anti-government protesters known as the "gilets jaunes", but there was a message for the industry. Through this collection Jones highlighted the possibility of Haute Couture for men, something that was also referenced in Raf Simons' A/W 19 collection.
You may argue that a luxury house already produces expensive high fashion and exclusive pieces on order for wealthy clients (both men and women), so there would be no need for Haute Couture menswear. Yet, this men's season was rather fractured and irrelevant, with London overshadowed by Brexit, Florence's Pitti offering a jumble of ideas, but no coherent vision, and Milan being reduced to more or less a weekend. Paris resisted pretty well, but Jones left people with a question, can menswear go the Haute Couture way and engage people on an entirely new level (when was the last time we saw a museum exhibition focused on menswear or exclusive men's pieces in a dedicated museum exhibition?)? Time, as usual, will tell.
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