Dior and its Men Design Director Kim Jones continue their collaborations with the art world, which has now become a distinctive trait and inspirational basis of the English fashion designer.
After collaborating with Raymond Pettibon and Shawn Stussy and paying homage to Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo with Spring/Summer 2020, Jones has chosen the extraordinary American artist Kenny Scharf for Men’s Pre-Fall 2021.
Scharf became famous as a street artist in the same period as his contemporaries Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and RAMMELLZEE, thanks to a comic book imagery populated by surreal creatures and installations when, in the 1980s, street-art was big leap from the street to galleries and museums around the world.
Scharf, who is not new to collaborations with the fashion world (Gap, Levi’s, Zara, Heron Preston, etc.), has been part of the New York East Village art scene ranging from painting, to sculpture, to fashion, to performance art, street art and video.
Fascinated by the world of television and pop, his works include icons of mass culture but also caricatures of the American middle class immersed in a surreal, science fiction or apocalyptic context.
Dior’s Pre-Fall 2021 collection in collaboration with Kenny Scharf will be unveiled on 8 December on the French maison’s website and simultaneously with an exclusive event in Beijing which, however, will not include a fashion show.
