SERVING as a starter before the main course of Dior’s unravelling of its autumn-winter 2023 collection in Egypt, Kim Jones unveiled a special capsule with Tremaine Emory. No stranger to collaboration, this time around the British designer invited streetwear legend, founder of Denim Tears and creative director of Supreme to come into the French Maison to present Dior Tears.
Inspired by jazz, and linking Paris to New York, via New Orleans, the casual and classic aesthetics are explored in the collection. Elevating the French savoir-faire against the style archetypes of America, Emory ensured that denim was still at the heart of this collection, merging this ordinary material with special jacquards and prints, reimagining fifties shapes through his modern lens.
“I want to share that moment in time, that beautiful moment in time where black writers and musicians and artists were coming from America, running from American, and finding some level of acceptance in certain European cities and being able to have their art respected and who they are respected”, explains Emory. “It wasn’t perfect but it was a just a moment, a beautiful moment for blacks to have the privilege and opportunity to escape from the terror, the horrors of America, a segregated Jim Crow America. Artists like Miles Davis and writers like James Baldwin found refuge in Paris”.
Seeing Dior Tears like a cross-pollination of fashion and culture, motifs and codes are explored within the seams propelling the message of this collection further. Varsity jackets are combined with sartorially strict chinos, while overcoats are accessorised with cognac leather trumpet bags, both showing the beauty of clashing taste.
And while jazz is an area where inspiration was found for the clothes, Emory also found a large amount of fuel for the collection in looking at black Ivy League students during the 50s and 60s, giving a nod to their empowerment due to the African diaspora they dealt with at that time along with their elders in the Civil Rights movement.
Known to be a designer who understands the power in garments, Dior Tears is an opportunity to educate through fabric, injecting a raw element into this Dior collaboration as he can resonant with the core of it, being himself an African-American who was born in the rural South and grew up in New York City.
Presenting this capsule in Africa, specifically Egypt, a continent which finds the roots of jazz embedded within its musical landscape and more importantly in a country that holds one of the cradles of civilisation, there is an overarching theme of coming together, bringing history to light through the medium of fashion – making Dior Tears the perfect appetiser for Jones’ AW23 collection in front of the Pyramids.
by Imogen Clark