The prettiness of couture and the tactility of modern menswear converged at the Dior Men Winter 2024 show once again. This time, owing its flamboyance to the theatricality of ballet, an obvious stylistic match for the romantic designer that is most notably Jones.
There are two Dior Men. There’s the Dior Men known for making carefully plotted utilitarian-backed menswear that walks the tightrope between ‘hype’ and ‘classic.’ And there’s the Dior Men known for its ability to alter perceptions of menswear dressing by taking cues, and perhaps also defacing, traditional notions of Haute Couture — that it can only be sustained by the interest of female clients — to pure, freeform fashion splendour.
It’s also easier to fall in love with the latter. Why wouldn’t you? Its details sparkle even when you peer into it from a distance, and at its core, represents all that is, and the things that can be, beautiful about men’s fashion. But having two facades is an obsession that wouldn’t be the first for artistic director Kim Jones, who has developed a specific inverse (and subversion) to menswear that typically only thrives outside the domain of conglomerate-backed supervision.
But the thing about serious, beautiful fashion is that it also can thrive when you imbue your younger consumers in the conversation. For Winter 2024, while there are two opposing sides to Dior Men present, it also looks at drafting generational appeal. Ballet shoes have never been more in trend than ever — who would forget balletcore as a zeitgeist-defining aesthetic of 2023 — and it’s not just the girls; guys are in on it too. So to create a collection based on ballet with Rudolf Nureyev’s textbook as inspiration is a remedy that will hardly be opposed by youth.
Therefore, with a premise that begins and ends in two parts — starting with ready-to-wear before moving toward Demi-couture offerings — Winter 2024 takes on the success of former collections where it is trendy, yet tasteful, and delectable for all ages, it’s a promising offer that sees, for the first time, such a fitting high point pushing into new ways of using the youth as inspiration.
Once you’re done with this story about the Dior Men Winter 2024 show, click here to catch up with our December/January 2024 issue.
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