There is something very juvenile about Kim Jones’ Summer 2025 collection for Dior Men. Set up by a looping Kate Bush track — Cloudbusting — and carried further by the unorthodox life-sized ceramic cats along the runway, there is a sense of quirk that appears achievable only with an acute vision of youth, that sets in motion all of one’s creative ideas. Essentially, Dior Men’s Summer 2025 looks like something one could DIY — ‘looks’ is the point of contention.
This sprightly energy within the Summer 2025 collection stems from a youthful gaze — perhaps that of Jones’ own — and that explains that of the collection’s uninhibited expressions. Why else would Cloudbusting get played three times over, or would the streetwear-inclined creative director select a South African potter as the season’s choice creative collaborator? Kim Jones may be all grown up, but he declares that his designs don’t have to be too.
The juvenility is refreshing, especially for a haute couture hub where elegance may almost seem stuffy, or too rigid for the new gent. In the past, Jones has done a wonderful job of breaking down much of that stuffiness, introducing relaxed silhouettes and plays on more feminine makes of archival creations. But Summer 2025 is Jones at his most extreme. Whereby the primary graphic for the season is no longer a streetwear-adjacent trope of cool or sleek, but instead childlike and reverential with a rose-tinted gaze toward the past. Punchy inner circle slogans (‘Dior For My Real Friends’) and statement-striving new-age decorations — ornamental ceramic buttons, ‘Dior’-stamped charms, scribbly sketching as the season’s primary graphics — are all a nod to Jones’ trajectory toward his current position.
This is not to say that the new Dior Men collection looks unpolished or lacks a mature refinement. Because 60 collections into his time at Dior Men, the creative director has proven to be exemplary in weaving his streetwear know-how into the maison’s New Look formalities. Plus, Dior is, and always will be, after all, a haute couture hub. So, while every single appliqué and ornament of Dior Men’s Summer 2025 collection was probably achievable back in the period of Jones’ CSM graduate collection, it is the house’s innate skill at savoir-faire that elevates any juvenile thought to a couture creation.
Recall Jones’ nomadic childhood where he grew up in the environs of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. Then remember Jones’ history with arts and crafts — having spent his formative years training in London’s Central Saint Martins. Playing on the creative director’s origin story results in a collection that carries the whimsy of the savannas, bridged by an understanding of youth-driven British quirk, and that maintains a Parisian hold on construction and formality.
