RAISING THE BAR
KIM JONES HAS CRAFTED THE ULTIMATE HOMAGE TO DIOR AND THE MAN WHO FOUNDED THE MAISON THROUGH THE REVIVAL OF ITS SIGNATURE BLAZER CUT, THE BAR JACKET
For several seasons now, Kim Jones has set his own imprint on the business of Dior through a carousel of collaborations with other designers and artists while continuing to place tailoring at its core. But for the Dior Men’s Winter 2022/2023 collection, Jones has returned to the beginning. In short, Jones approaches the 75th anniversary of the house by looking at its very first collection, taking elements from it and transforming it for the men of today.
“I want to look at the archive, at the purity of the beginnings of the house, at its original impulse. We looked at the initial collections and focused on the architecture, taking these elements and transforming them almost instinctively in a masculine way for today, always keeping the joie de vivre at the heart of Christian Dior’s clothing,” Jones elaborates.
To that end, in a grand gesture for the house, Jones recreated a life-size replica of Pont Alexandre III in a tent at the Place de La Concorde, just steps away from the actual bridge. As the light changes and silhouettes emerge in a winter’s morning in Paris on the Pont Alexandre III, it reflects the colors of the sky and the passage of time, of the history of Christian Dior, both the house and the man—and that of Kim Jones as the current artistic director of Dior Men’s collections.
In this Winter 2022/2023 collection, everything is unified by the timeless savoir-faire of Dior’s French ateliers—from the exuberance of archival embroidered employed with luxurious insouciance in surprising ways, to contemporary sportswear and technical materials borrowed from outerwear, utilized in an unexpected formal and elegant sense.On a more specific note, for this season, Jones introduced his own take on the famous Bar jacket for the men’s collection.
Perhaps a little history on the iconic Bar jacket is in order here: On February 12, 1947, Christian Dior presented his debut collection which would change fashion forever. It was also then that that the Bar jacket was introduced. With its signature hourglass line, the Bar jacket is perhaps Dior’s best-know signature cut—it famously triggered a fashion revolution when it was first presented as part of Monsieur Dior’s 1947 haute couture debut. The Bar jacket takes its name from the bar at the Plaza Athénée that was frequented by the founder himself. The original design was constructed from four yards of Shantung silk in a soft ivory shade and padded at the hipline for a more rounded, feminine shape. Paired with a voluminous, pleated black Corolle skirt, it was a dramatic statement at a time when fabric consumption was still restricted. Just like that, the “new look” had arrived and its success catapulted Christian Dior into global fame.
Since then, the Bar jacket has been reworked an updated throughout almost all of the 22 couture collections that Monsieur Dior designed until his passing in 1957. As of then, the Bar was firmly embedded in the house’s DNA and legacy. So, it’s only natural that Jones celebrated the maison’s anniversary by reinterpreting house codes, including that of the Bar jacket. With a belief that the men’s fashion can move forward by accessing the elegance of the past while challenging rigidly binary gendering, Jones is constructing a new future for Dior menswear.
In reimagining the Bar for modern-day gentlemen, Jones disrupts the iconic jacket’s silhouette and infects it with masculinity. The result contained many references to the couturier’s signature silhouette, especially as it is bathed in Monsieur Dior’s favorite gray. The Bar jacket, which was originally fitted to create the illusion of an hourglass figure, has been successfully reintroduced for the almost curveless silhouette of the male body.
Now, the front part of the new Bar jacket has been reconstructed by cutting right through the canvas, which is then pleated and resewn, thereby recreating the effect of a cinched waist and flared-out peplum. A tiny bit of canvas is left protruding from the dart and hand-stitched to add a sense of destruction to the perfectly-tailored suiting. The canvas is further extended to the bottom to give it as much silhouette and support as possible. For this new “Bar” jacket, Jones swapped delicate Shantung silk for dry fabrics in patterns like houndstooth and Prince of Wales to assure appropriation for menswear. The little details such as the exposed canvas, raw seams and hand-stitching is now paired with elegant cashmere track pants and shirts that are overlaid with a delicately embroidered sheer sheath that is both youtful and classic.
Furthermore, this seasonal highlight has been designed in two other shapes: One is meant for a more effortless and workwear feel where the Bar jacket is dressed down with thick stonewashed cotton canvas, while the other comes with a fabric overlay, where double sided wool cloth is contrasted with Japanese dry gabardine. With this rendition, Jones has once again linked the past, present and future of Dior. What a marvellous way to raise the bar.
“It’s only natural that Jones celebrated the maison’s anniversary by reinterpreting house codes, including the Bar jacket”