Dior in Dogtown
Dior took to Venice Beach on Thursday night for its men’s 2023 resort show, shutting off a block in the neighborhood to parade its “California Couture” lineup, which artistic director of men’s Kim Jones created by collaborating with Eli Russell Linnetz of ERL. “When I was growing up in England, Venice Beach was a fantasy where all the kids were cool, and Eli is one of the cool kids,” Jones told WWD.
Kim Jones and Eli Russell Linnetz combined surf, skate and Parisian high-fashion savoir-faire.
For Kim Jones, like many, Venice Beach was his first image of Southern California — and it was from afar, idealizing surfing and skateboarding, and watching “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” and videos by No Doubt in the 1990s.
“When I was growing up in England, Venice Beach was a fantasy where all the kids were cool, and Eli is one of the cool kids,” he said during a preview of the Dior men’s collection he designed with Venice born-and-raised multihyphenate Eli Russell Linnetz of ERL.
When Jones finally did make it to Los Angeles as a teenager, it didn’t disappoint. “I just loved it, it was seedy glamour,” he said of the carnival-like boardwalk scene, where today, hucksters, hipsters, hippies and hedge funders hang out, work out and maybe grab a $16 loaf of bread at Gjusta Market.
So on Thursday night, Dior closed down a block in the heart of it all at Windward and Pacific Avenues, even adding its own “ERL Dior” letters to the historic “Venice” street sign that is the more eccentric cousin to the Hollywood sign to its east.
The “California Couture” resort collection was shown on an ocean-blue runway with two cresting waves for set pieces, a sunset and sea of humanity in the background, including colorful characters toting skateboards, Rollerblading, riding scooters with boom boxes behind them, hawking beach ponchos and more.
“The block is classic film material for me. I don’t like polished places...I do like somewhere that has culture and a variety of people, that means the good comes with the bad,” Jones said of the ocean-front, tourist-loved location, where gentrification confronts homelessness in a swirl of trendy restaurants, beach murals, tattoo parlors, cannabis dispensaries, souvenir shops and bike rental stands.
“California Couture” is a reference not only to Christian Dior’s time spent on the West Coast, and the influence America had on the growth of his business, but to the region’s rise in importance in today’s fashion landscape.
“The way of dressing in California has a huge influence on how people around the world dress. Look at Shawn Stüssy, for example, how his brand created a way we all started dressing when we were teenagers,” the designer said. “It’s relaxed, it’s about comfort and outdoor life. There’s a certain dress-up to this collection but it’s not in the classic formal sense, it’s through rich fabrications…it’s almost eveningwear,” he explained of the elevated but relaxed tailoring mixed with vivid-hued surf- and skate-inspired shorts, grunge sweaters, logo tube socks and Connage quilted high-tops. They’re all enriched with Linnetz’s embroideries, sequined and Tinseltown tinsel trims, and nods to Parisian high fashion, like elegant veiled hats and diamond riviere necklaces.
The history of Venice stretches all the way back to the early 20th century. It was founded in 1905 by Abbot Kinney as a beach resort town that drew early