Colin Jones was a British Royal Ballet dancer who joined the company in 1953, and subsequently became a serious photojournalist, covering 1960s war hotspots, social issues and capturing indelible images of British youthquake stars like The Who and Mick Jagger. Among his body of work was an extraordinary 1966 day-in-the-life story for Time Life on Rudolf Nureyev. His nephew is Kim Jones.
Hence: Jones, the artistic director of Dior’s menswear, began plotting out a show about Nureyev, “Offstage and onstage.” He made a book of his late uncle’s Nureyev photographs—it was given out at the show—and dedicated his Dior fall ’24 menswear collection to him, and to his own late father, Colin’s brother, David.
The ties that bind Nureyev’s illustrious history—he was as close to a rock star and style icon as a ballet dancer could be—go beyond the Jones family link, to the house of Dior itself. Nureyev famously partnered prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn in the 1965 debut of Romeo and Juliet. Fonteyn was a Dior couture client. Jones looked at a richly beaded and embroidered 1950 strapless gown, named Debussy, which is owned by Bath Fashion Museum.
And so this is the backstory of how Jones came to make the great leap of presenting the first-ever Dior men’s couture for the house. Emerging to Prokofiev’s dramatic ball scene music for Romeo and Juliet, it was daywear first: slim tailoring, shorts and all-in-one wide-legged shorts suits, ballet-pump inspired shoes and side-knotted turbans; all of it carrying coded nods to Nureyev.
Nevertheless, conceptual ballet-studio shorts suits apart, Jones was clearly keeping this segment within the guidelines he’s set for the house since he arrived five years ago. Dior has a big clientele for men’s business attire: Jones has modernized and streamlined its cut, making a distinctive signature of his one-button asymmetrically fastened suit jackets and coats, giving a definitively ideal trouser-line, and offering multiple options in the way of casual-luxe jackets.
Owning all of that, and also reaching to a further level for men’s evening wear may well make sense for the house. It began with a Nureyev-inspired kimono, hand made in Kyoto, and proceeded through opulently-beaded tunics, T-shirts and crocodile tops. Out came two lavishly silver embellished toile-de-jouy patterned looks; a scalloped-edged cape and a sleeveless tank with a matching backpack. Under a gray suit, a sheer burgundy top with a ruby-beaded neckline. Diamonds from Dior’s high jewelry collection were piled on under a belted denim suit. Odd to say it, but this move into showing extravagant made-to-order special pieces also has a Jonesian pragmatism about it. It’s no stretch of the imagination to envisage exactly who’ll be wearing them on the red carpets of the world in no time at all.
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