Dior Goes Gray for Fall Men’s Campaign – WWD

RIVER CRUISE: The soft silhouettes of Dior’s fall men’s collection are presented against a moody gray backdrop — Christian Dior’s signature color — in the images for the fall men’s campaign.

The collection’s touchstone was water, namely London’s Thames and Paris’ Seine rivers, meant to reflect the idea of movement as conceived by creative director Kim Jones, himself someone who moves between the U.K and France.

Jones mined the Dior archives as inspiration, looking to the work of the young prodigy Yves Saint Laurent when he stepped into Christian Dior’s shoes as his successor in 1957.

“There is a sense of effortlessness and movement that works with what we are doing in menswear and we have adapted some items from his [Saint Laurent’s] first collections to feature in this one, shifting them from the context of the feminine to the masculine,” Jones said at the time of the show.

Coats that transform into capes with the pull of a zip are one item Jones created for the collection, as well as jackets with double sleeves gently ruched by pull strings above the elbow. In the campaign, models Emile Danckaert, Wu Guoqiang, Awwal Adeoti and Loris Moine pose in the voluminous outerwear, along with trench coats, dropped-shoulder jackets and sou’wester fishermen’s hats.

The ads, shot by Rafael Pavarotti, are meant to invoke a “celebration of a fluctuating, dual world…where purity and sophistication converge,” the company said in a statement, demonstrated by Danckaert and Adeoti’s bold laughter in some images.

Accessories are prominently on display, with the brand’s Saddle bag presented in an exclusive metal version, while the Saddle Boxy and the new Dior Pillow bags feature front and center in the shots. The Dior Carlo reinterpreted in derby style shoes and ankle boots ground the looks.

“The quest for elegance, combined with a concern for comfort and functionality, pervades every piece, including the sculptural knits that offer sumptuous drapes reproducing the undulation of waves,” the company added of the collection.

During the runway show in January, Gwendoline Christie and Robert Pattinson read from T.S. Eliot’s famously bleak poem “The Waste Land.”

The campaign is set to debut Tuesday. Images were art directed by Ronnie Cooke Newhouse, styled by Melanie War, while Benjamin Muller handled the hair and Peter Philips handled the makeup looks. Franck Lebon directed an accompanying film.