SADDLE UP

For Dior Men Winter 2023-2024, iconic accessories like saddle bag and pillow bag take muse from the past for a contemporaneous collection that lasts into the future

- JONATHAN HO

GREAT DESIGNS FROM THE PAST often possess timeless qualities that transcend cultural and temporal boundaries – and Dior’s latest Winter 2023-2024 men’s collection designed by Kim Jones is all about drawing upon that great muse: time.

Sixty-five years ago, Yves Saint Laurent presented his debut collection for Dior, forever changing the face of fashion. It’s from this Spring-Summer of 1958 that Jones draws upon for his winter offering: men’s history intertwining with a melding of classicism with modernity, practicality and ease – a streamline from excess to an amalgam of the formal and casual.

The great rivers Seine and Thames remind us that even if we stand still, they yet flow – an analogy of time. Regenerative and rejuvenating waters that pass through two of human civilisation’s greatest cities, Paris and London: the Seine, central to French life, culture and identity, France’s largest international shipping port at its mouth and gateway to the wealthiest and most populated of the 27 administrative regions of France, known as Île-de-France; and the Thames, its English mirror, both key cultural motifs for great historical artists like T.S. Eliot and today, the Artistic Director of Dior Men.