Dior
This is the first time the French fashion house Dior put on a show in Egypt, as well as the first time that a major international fashion show was held in front of the Pyramids of Giza. Fashion house showcased its futuristic men's autumn 2023 collection against majestic backdrop of ancient wonders.
A Fall collection that revealed itself in the scorched Giza desert at nightfall was textbook Kim Jones: vast, elegant, cinematic. The tombs of ancient pharaohs lit up, a snake of LEDs illuminating the runway into existence to pounding techno. Jones is an auteur as much as he is a designer, pulling from both the Dior archive and the world beyond it to create pure spectacle. Man knows how to put on a show. When the invitations – bone white, haute gsm and handwritten, naturally – listed the venue as Cairo, fashion’s chattering classes were right to be gassed.
The clothes were a sea of neutrals in unneutral gear, as sand, stone and whites were decoupaged with tulle scarves and watery layers. It was futuristic, as it so often is with Jones, and peppered with tailoring that never tries too hard; jackets that are generous in the shoulder and sleeve, but atop roll-necks and technical pieces. The synthesis of tailoring and sportswear is difficult to achieve, and yet Jones manages to make it crackle. It's his signature. It fed into his party boys of Dune's planet Arakkis, armour and all, with the house monogram serving as the base plate for lilac body vests. Elsewhere there were more than a few balayage space helmets. Oxygen shortage, but make it Dior.
There was also a little superstition to the sci-fi. Knits in bangs of colours were souped up with the bread-and-butter of the superstitious: the Illuminati pyramid was ablaze in one graphic; constellations of the Zodiac in another.
Under the stars and before the silent wonder of the pyramids, it all felt a little mystical. That’s kinda the point. As both a Fall collection premiere and a birthday party for Dior’s 75th, Jones wants the celebration to be spiritual, to focus on the cosmos – much like the Ancient Egyptians, who built the show's breathtaking backdrop to reflect the star path of Orion's Belt above. “With this anniversary and the collections' we've done that are all entwined and building to a conclusion, it felt appropriate to do something very special at the end of the year,” Jones told GQ ahead of the show. “It is the summing up of past, present and future in a place – in front of the Great Pyramid.”
This sort of futurist take on the Dior doctrine comes naturally to Jones. Because his Dior is of neo-couture, where historical cuts see a forward-thinking redesign, like the wool demi-kilt, a descendant of a ‘Bonne Fortune’ Dior bias pleated dress from the ‘50s. It was everywhere in the collection. And this nebulous space in-between past and future is where Jones seems to feel most comfortable. He’s both a historian and a forecaster.
