DREAM TEAM

A collaboration between artist Peter Doig and Dior is a painterly vision of contemporary craftsmanship

- LAURA HAWKINS

In Peter Doig’s Two Trees (2017), an impressionistic, dreamlike depiction of three men silhouetted against a moonlit sea, the colourful diamond patterns, camouflage details and citrus shades of their clothing have an intense tactility. The 12ft-wide painting, idiosyncratically ambiguous in its setting, seems to hold secrets within its rich brushstrokes. The figure on the right carries a silver video camera, appearing to film the other two men, who stand next to two twisted, moss-dappled trees. For A/W21, Dior menswear artistic director Kim Jones brought a sartorially-inclined lens to Doig’s oeuvre, zooming in on the bodies in the Scottish-born, Trinidad-based artist’s paintings, which draw from a wide range of photographic and artistic references (boldly hued hockey players, spectral Napoleonic soldiers, fiery lions, and figures that nod to Rousseau and Cézanne), and transposing their silhouettes onto the catwalk.