‘It’s not just fashion, it’s a cultural thing’—Kim Jones on the Air Dior and his supreme talent at sell-out collabs

He spent term times between Sussex and London (he now lives part-time in each) and became interested in fashion via his elder sister’s collection of i-D magazines. At Central Saint Martins, Jones studied under the legendary teacher Louise Wilson (whose students include Christopher Kane, Phoebe Philo, Jonathan Saunders, Roksanda Ilinčić and Erdem Moralioglu) and it was Wilson, who died in 2014, who gave him what he considers the best advice he ever received. ‘She told me to do what I want and not look at what other people were doing. And to believe in myself.’ Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

Jones’s career has been garlanded from the start. When he graduated in 2002, John Galliano bought half his collection. Alexander McQueen acted as a mentor. After launching his own label and collaborating with brands including Umbro, Mulberry and Pastelle, he took the top job at Dunhill, a brand he saw as a sleeping giant, and established a reputation for exquisite tailoring. He was poached by Louis Vuitton in 2011 on the advice of Marc Jacobs, and took the job at Dior Homme (also part of the LVMH luxury conglomerate) in 2018. One of his first acts was to change the name to Dior Men — but mostly, he feels, his job is honouring the brand’s legacy.

He feels no pressure about the name above the door, or his illustrious predecessors, he says. He approaches these hugely demanding jobs ‘logically’. ‘Although that sounds quite boring, it helps a lot as well. I worked for Vuitton for years so I had a good understanding of what the business is. I know about the Asian market, I know about Japan, what ties sell where, the small things as well as the big things, the rules and the processes.’ These are big companies, he stresses, but Dior being that bit smaller than Louis Vuitton gives him more control. ‘It’s a lot more agile in terms of making products, so that was quite a refreshing thing, to have an atelier that can give you a garment in two days.’

The Air Dior was a great personal triumph. The Business Of Fashion described it as the most successful product launch of the pandemic year, 2020, making an estimated £19 million for Dior in a few hours: five million people signed up to be in with a chance of purchasing the 8,500 available pairs (in addition to those who braved the queues at Selfridges), with 5,000 pairs reserved for Dior’s best clients. ‘I still get messages from people asking for pairs. I literally don’t have any left — please write that down.’

Jones is not someone who likes to look backwards, but he did do a little reflecting on his birthday recently (11 September). ‘I always get to thinking on my birthday,’ he says. ‘When I did the Vuitton Supreme collection and created a three-mile queue in Tokyo — that was quite mind-blowing. But the Air Dior, if it hadn’t been for Covid, I’m sure the queues would have been as long.’

He describes the trainer as a ‘selfish act’, a thing he had always wanted to do. ‘I know some people think you’re selling out when you do something like that but actually I’m just doing it for myself. What I like about working with Dior is that Pietro [Beccari], the CEO, and I both think quite similarly: big, big, big, big.’ Again, his tone suggests that this is completely obvious — and doing anything smaller would be a little tragic.

It takes a huge amount of negotiation to pull off such collaborations and an astute sense of what it is that will spark that special desire in customers. ‘People want things that relate to a culture,’ he says. ‘It’s not just fashion, it’s a cultural thing. Working with Travis [Scott] or with [Michael] Jordan, that’s what young people are interested in. They don’t just want to see one thing, they want to see things coming together.’ His own past collaborators have ranged from REM front man Michael Stipe and streetwear legend Shawn Stussy, to current hip-hop darling Travis Scott, who co-designed the Spring/Summer 2022 collection, billed as a ‘conversation between friends’.

But as Jones points out, such collaborations are part of the Dior heritage, too. ‘When we launched the Air Dior in Miami, we were looking at all the things that Christian Dior did in America. He collaborated with car companies. He was very forward-thinking about working with people and about the arts; he was a gallerist before he was a couturier. So there were all these things linking together.’

For his SS22 collection, by contrast, he has gone back to the Dior archive and refocused on what the label has traditionally always been about. ‘I was re-looking at tailoring in the Sixties, when Marc Bohan was there, and worked with that. We did some simple coats and very chic, elegant, easy-to-wear clothing. We were doing it in the midst of a pandemic so I wanted some ease in it: looking smart but feeling comfortable. You do what’s around you at the time I guess. Wherever I am in the world, I always go into stores and talk to people. I’m always listening — it’s one of the things I do most in my role. I react to what people want.’

The past 18 or so months have been a challenge in that sense; it is only recently that things are opening up and his breakneck travelling schedule can resume. And yet he says he is still hesitant being around lots of people he doesn’t know. ‘I just think… as we speak my uncle’s in intensive care with Covid and he’s double-vaccinated. It’s still real. I can’t risk catching it as I can’t risk not doing my job. I have a really tight schedule and it doesn’t allow any movement.’

By the time he next gets home Jones will have been away for a month and a half. He lives in an ultra-modern, brushed-concrete, vaguely Bondish lair in west London, with an indoor lap pool and a Francis Bacon rug hanging in his living room, 10,000 books and 6,000 records in addition to his other curiosities. As for his most prized possession, he can name two.

‘One is an ostrich egg I found when I was four in the Kalahari. And then there’s a little ceramic matchbox that belonged to my mother. It’s one of my last memories of her. I always have that by my bed. These aren’t big things but they mean a lot to me.’

Lockdown initially came as something of a relief as he finally had time to unpack. ‘It allowed me to go into every box and every drawer and have everything organised. I love being at home because my house is very private. The gate shuts and I can just be normal.’