Dior Fall 2023 Lives Between the Here & Now
Dior's Fall 2023 menswear collection is one of the rare Kim Jones-designed collections that wasn't co-created with an artist collaborator. As such, it provides the luxury house with a chance to look inward; for Fall 2023, you get Dior on Dior.
Not to be confused with Dior's Winter 2023 menswear line, which was designed with Virgina Woolf in mind, Dior Fall 2023 does feature an auxiliary clothing capsule created by Denim Tears founder Tremaine Emory appropriately named Dior Tears but that's a separate venture.
The core of Dior Fall 2023 is, well, Dior.
Held underneath Giza's Great Pyramid (seriously) in late 2022, Dior's Fall 2023 runway show is a time capsule where the past meets the present.
Dior history is made modern here. For instance, the woolen half-kilts — utilized for house ambassador Robert Pattinson's 2023 Met Gala look — are inspired by Bonne Fortune, a dress envisioned by Christian Dior in the 1950s that boasts a pleated skirt on its lower half.
Likewise, Mssr. Dior's fixation on astronomy is made tangible through prints that bathe garments in rich starfields.
This masculine-meets-feminine conceit is further explored through contrasting themes that exist throughout Dior Fall 2023.
For instance, hardy outdoor gear, a recent Dior fixation, is rendered delicate when styled with gauzy scarves and tropical wool slacks.
Conversely, Dior's 3D-printed moto gear lends a rugged edge to fur jackets. The shape of Dior's intarsia-woven knitwear, rich with plush texture, is demarcated by hard-edged inverted seams.
Hard and soft, past and present. Dior Fall 2023 lives in the space between. The collection is entirely contemporary but rooted enough in the past to maintain a stylistic throughline to that which came before.
And it supposedly includes a new Birkenstock collaboration which is, by my own token, the most obvious reason for excitement.