Another Paris Fashion Week Men’s has come to a close.
The biggest presentation was arguably Pharrell’s third as the creative director of Louis Vuitton Men's. We’ve discussed it plenty already. So, you won’t be seeing it here. Instead, we wanted to make sure we shed the proper light on some of the other amazing designers who showcased their Fall/Winter 2024 collections in Paris.
Established names like Dior, Dries Van Noten, and Junya Watanabe once again impressed us. There were also some great shows from up-and-coming names that have piqued our interest like Winnie, Airei, and 4SDesigns.
These shows are the presentations we are still thinking about.
Dior
This season, Kim Jones took his first stab at designing a men’s haute-couture collection by tapping deeply into his own family history. Jones’ uncle, photographer Colin Jones, was a ballet dancer who developed a close relationship with the revered Royal Ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev in the 1960s. Jones referenced his uncle’s photographs of Nuruyev and made the dancer a muse for his collection, which simultaneously presented Dior Men’s seasonal ready-to-wear line alongside Jones' haute-couture debut. “It’s the difference between onstage and backstage; the life of Nureyev theatrically and in reality,” Jones stated in the show notes. “Here it is a meeting of the dancer’s style with that of the Dior archive.” Jones opened the show with 40 ready-to-wear looks, which sought to capture Nuruyev’s personal style off the stage. Jones’ brought back new iterations of his popular Oblique suits, which were styled with an elegant but casual take on dance pumps done up in leather and nylon. The looks played off the ballerina style during the ‘60s and ‘70s, which lead to bold but subtle outerwear such as safari jackets, oversized wool-melton coats, and zip-up leather overshirts. The ready-to-wear was calm, elegant, and casual; the last 20 haute-couture looks upped the theatrics to capture Nureuyev’s presence on stage. The opening act was an exquisite handcrafted silver Uchikake kimono (inspired by ones actually collected by Nureyev) that took 10 artisans in Kyoto three months to complete. A “Debussy Dress,” originally designed by Christain Dior in 1950, returned on the runway as a wool jumpsuit embroidered with iridescent and opalescent beads, sequins, and tulle petals. While most of us can only dream of wearing pieces like a diamond choker by Victoire de Castellane, Jones first men’s haute-couture line connected the past to the present in a way that felt contemporary yet true to Dior’s heritage. —Lei Takanashi