The Talented Mr. Jones

Dior's creative director Kim Jones talks to Anna Murphy about reinventing the male silhouette, holidaying with Kate Moss and wearing Kim Kardashian's T-shirts

- Anna Murphy

IN FASHION HISTORY there is surely no ensemble more emblematic of femininity than Christian Dior's New Look of 1947: that vast skirt and that nipped-in top half - the bar jacket, named after Monsieur Dior's favourite haunt at the Plaza Athénée in Paris.

And yet, for the latest Dior Homme collection, the bar jacket was remade for men. I wanted to celebrate 75 years of Dior, says Kim Jones, the British creative director at the house. I wanted to bring all his loves together: English tailoring, the flowers of his garden. I wanted to take a new look at the New Look.

The result is unquestionably mannish, its almost imperceptibly hourglass lines delivered by creating folds in a more conventional man's jacket shape. The raw edges add to the masculine feel, yet tucked away under the collar there is - whisper it - the most beauteous floral embroidery. Dior was set up after the Second World War to bring joy, color, and excitement to the world through fashion, Jones, 48, says. That's what I looked at, what I set out to do.

To be able to revisit the Dior archives and then to reinvent them is, he says, one of the brilliant aspects to heading up such a celebrated fashion house. When you are stuck for an idea you just go into the archive. There is always something new being added. Often I see something that should be part of a collection that I am working on, and I will call it in straight away.