Kim Jones is a streetwear guy. It may not be obvious, given his resume — seven years overseeing Louis Vuitton, four years at Fendi, six years at Dior Homme — but it’s true.
And it’s why his tenure at Dior, demarcated by remarkably consistent design language, has been a runaway success almost since his first day. It all comes down to the crux of streetwear innovation: Collaborations, collaborations, and more collaborations.
But, there’s much more to Jones’ oeuvre than a couple names demarcated by a lowercase “x.” His canny team-ups, however, are the most potent tool in Jones’ creative arsenal.
When Jones took over Dior’s menswear line in 2018, he kicked the door down with a momentous collaboration with artist KAWS presented during a runway show capped by 30+-foot-tall sculpture made of a estate’s-worth of pink flowers. It’s now 2024 and Jones has reintroduced KAWS to the Dior fold for a Year of the Snake capsule. Because only he can.
This is a canny confluence of pals, well-timed for a KAWS-adoring Chinese audience to be sure, but also an organic (and very streetwear) reunion.
Jones followed his initial KAWS collab by aligning Dior Homme with a handful of high-profile artists: Raymond Pettibon, Hajime Sorayama, Daniel Arsham, Shawn Stussy. You’ll notice that, together, these guys would create the ultimate hypebeast art gallery. These are streetwear’s clearest art-world signifiers, guys whose names and practices have been printed atop so many hoodies.
The uncomplicated genius of Jones’ very streetwear maneuver (with very streetwear partners, no less) instantly won Dior a newfound spate of young fans, a factor dramatically compounded by 2020’s Travis Scott-fronted Dior x Jordan Brand partnership, which foretold Scott’s own unfortunately timed Dior collection a few years later.
This is all to say that Jones, a veteran of British streetwear who learned his trade under Gimme Five’s Michael Kopelman, is a collaborative master.
This is also not news: He most famously demonstrated this at Louis Vuitton by partnering with IYKYK names like Hiroshi Fujiwara’s fragment design, Kapital and, most infamously, Supreme. At Dior, Jones has merely perfected the technique.
He intermingled a few comparably smaller artists, like Amoako Boafo and Peter Doig (who is, to be fair, an auction favorite), between Dior’s biggest barn-burners. But Jones’ specialty lies in boosting the innate appeal of Dior staples by attaching them to the built-in hype of saleable names.
So, without collaborations, what is Jones’ Dior Homme?
Though collaborations are his masterstroke, Jones has maintained a tangible stylistic throughline that goes back to the LV days. Both there and at Dior, his vision for menswear birthed crisp neutral-toned suiting, generous knitwear, printed shirting, tailored shorts, and beefy leather shoes.
His work gracefully balances the slouchy and the slim, hitting on a louche silhouette that never leans too far either way.
Without collaborations, Jones’ Dior wouldn’t be as explosive, perhaps, but it’s still rock-solid, as evidenced by recent collab-free collections. His clothing is beautiful though perhaps not quite dramatic. In fact, it’s really quite quiet luxury in its muted palette and restrained shapes.
This in turn makes it approachable, if not necessarily dynamic enough to stand out in a crowded luxury menswear space.
This is where Jones’ collaborations come in. With these high-ticket partners in tow, Jones’ menswear becomes a canvas for expression, encouraging Sorayama to remake Dior’s Saddle Bag as a $30,000 metal sculpture or KAWS to illustrate a blazer’s Dior logo with a Year of the Snake motif. Would Dior still sell bundles of B23 sneakers if it didn’t also make limited edition versions? Surely. But maybe not quite as many.
Jones doesn’t merely rely on his collaborators to make his menswear appealing.
Instead, the quality is already there: It merely forms the foundation for further ingenuity imbued by Jones’ admired artists.
Without collaborations, which extend to Jones’ accessories — from Mystery Ranch bags to Matthew Williams’ belts — there’d still be a solid base of sumptuous clothing each season. But collaborators sauce it all up. That goes for both the unexpected inside-outside-fashion crossover of ERL Dior and the world-conquering collection designed by famously fashionable F1 driver Lewis Hamilton.
These team-ups are the spice, a necessary ingredient for any delicious dish. But a meal isn’t made by spice alone. Jones is a talented chef capable of serving fare unambiguously tasty enough to stand on its own.
Collaborations don’t singularly define his Dior, but they sure do make it delicious.