The emblematic signatures of the house, the oblique Dior canvas, have been reinterpreted in the light of the myth of Jack Kerouac … Kim Jones also referring to the controversial Yves Saint Laurent collection from 1960!
Dior Oblique Canvas: Honoring the Beat Generation
1960. Yves Saint Laurent, then a young artistic director of the Dior house, delivers a collection in tune with his time. While the Youthquake is reshuffling the cards of the proper, the cool and the elegant, Yves Saint Laurent is inspired by the Beat Generation for the Haute Couture Dior 1960 collection. Known for having been the first collection to offer a Haute Couture leather and crocodile jacket – it will also be the last YSL signed for Dior.
Neither the press nor the clientele appreciated this foray of the streets and youth into the sacred temple of sewing.
The Beat Generation is that generation of bohemian writers led by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg – a generation who, inspired by jazz, let their spontaneity find expression in literature. Wanderers and travelers, they stayed in Paris in particular in the 1950s; bathed in the Rive Gauche atmosphere of the time.
2021. Kim Jones reminds us of this oh so revolutionary movement in a Dior Homme collection for Spring / Summer 2022. And Kim Jones is one of the largest private collectors of Kerouac’s works.
For this collection, therefore, he sought to compose exquisite but adventurous pieces. Pieces “that one finds in a travel suitcase” as he summed it up in London, where the Dior Spring / Summer 2022 show was held.
On the parade side, a monumental version of the legendary Sur La Route manuscript opened the show. Manuscript known to have been written in one go, on the same roll!
On the clothing side this time, there were tweed jackets and coats with bias cut checks⊠And above all, the iconic codes of the Dior house, distilled here and there on silhouettes with a beatnik look! Technical nylon shorts, hand-painted leather jackets with references to vintage Jack Kerouac book covers and suddenlyâŠ
The oblique canvas was used to cover more practical accessories than usual. Backpacks, gourds and other bags covered in the most desired canvas of the moment … Kim Jones has cut for the next summer season a wardrobe advocating creativity, more off-beat than conformist! Or a stylistic hymn to creativity that shifts the lines.