A Colour Symphony

Presented against hyper-realistic projections of galaxies beyond ours, Dior Men’s fall 2021 collection is a bridge between history and the future. And resting comfortably in between are colourful toons conceived by artist Kenny Scharf.

- Asri Jasman

“High fashion, style and glamour!” Kenny Scharf exclaims when asked what Dior means to him. It was a looping question that was implied by DJ Honey Dijon’s combined remix of Deee-Lite’s ‘Pussycat Meow’ and ‘What Is Love?’ for the Dior Men fall 2021 show. “How do you say ‘delicious’, ‘delovely’, ‘delectable’, ‘Diorrr’,” croons vocalist Lady Miss Kier. And thanks to Scharf, Dior Men’s latest offering is all that and more.

Scharf was born in Hollywood, California, and grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. “My grandparents were from eastern Europe and came to the United States to escape the persecution of the Jews in the early 20th century,” he recalls. “I had a very typical suburban American upbringing, but always felt there was something else out there and something different about me.” That drive for a life beyond the sort of textbook American dream that he was born into brought him to New York City in the ’70s.

As fate would have it, Scharf met Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat during the first week of his move to the Big Apple, thus beginning his exposure to graffiti art. Like his fellow contemporaries, Scharf too believes that art and fashion are inherently connected. “They are both expressions of creativity and can easily intermingle and occupy the same place at the same time,” he expresses.