RUNWAY: Dior Men Pre-Fall 2019

Tokyo is the place to be or so it would seem as both Valentino and now Dior Men (please do remember the re-branding, it is no longer Dior Homme). For the Pre-Fall 2019 collection, Dior's Kim Jones looked to the future and the collection's host country for inspiration: there was a futuristic statue commissioned just for the show while cherry blossom motifs appeared on the runway, as well as on the garments themselves. This intra-season collection aimed to solidify Jones' vision for Dior Men: sporty and technical while embracing the codes of the house. The latter manifested itself in the final looks with luxuriously fabricated tailoring with more homage to Japan via a leather gi with tailored trousers. Elsewhere in the collection, technology placed a role from fake tattooed models aiming to resemble cyborgs to a futuristic looking DIOR-emblazoned sweater in a silvery fabric. There were other nods to the maison's history like using Dior's iconic trotter pattern on a bomber - sure to be a covetable item for men and women alike. In all, it was a solid collection from Jones, though it felt less personal than his prior collections at Louis Vuitton but maybe that was partly the point as we become more and more detached from one another even though we are more connected than ever before.