Back during the Dior Men fall 2023 presentation—a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle set against the backdrop of the pyramids of Giza, Egypt—the house also previewed its collaboration for the season. It sits separate from the core Dior Men fall 2023 collection, but at the same time, serves as an extension.
Aptly named Dior Tears, the capsule collection sees artistic director Kim Jones coming together with longtime friend Tremaine Emory's Denim Tears brand. Emory is also Supreme's current creative director.
"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 America, and finding some level of acceptance in certain European cities and being able to have their art respected and who they are respected," says Emory in the collection notes. "It wasn’t perfect but it was 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."
It's a converging of ideas between New York and Paris. Much like the African-American experience that inspired Emory, Dior Tears takes stylistic references of Black jazz musicians from the '50s and '60s and mashes them with French savoir-faire. At the heart of it is a denim-rich collection (coincidentally, the material has its origins in France) that's then complimented by Dior Men's techniques and craft.
A constant technical conversation between France and America takes the form of the latter's homespun fabrications mixed in with French jacquards and precise tailoring. Dior Oblique motifs are of course, splattered sparingly throughout the Dior Tears capsule collection, while the colour palette sticks to a healthy dose of brights that are reminiscent of the African diaspora.
What's especially noteworthy—as with most Dior Men collaborations overseen by Jones—is that the Dior Tears capsule collection leans neither too heavily on either collaborators' aesthetics. There's a synergy and somewhat equal marriage of ideas—just like how a collaboration should be like.
The Dior Tears capsule collection is out now at Dior Men boutiques. View the full collection in the gallery below.
