At the heart of Dior’s Men Summer 2025 collection, unparalleled craftsmanship is unraveled through embraced motifs, figuration, and almost homespun monumentalism of the South African ceramicist Hylton Nel. For this collection, Artistic Director Kim Jones continues to explore and advance global ideas of savoir-faire without hierarchy and with further development in his signature take on luxury and utility. In fact, men’s workwear and the women’s haute couture archive surrender new meaning this season, combining functionality, longevity, and legacy, while in tailoring and outerwear, rounded volumes predominate. On one hand, silhouettes are at once sculptural and practical, borrowing from the language of ceramics in both form and finishing, and on the other hand, the humble and the noble are combined in fabrications, while the functionality of workwear flourishes with the influence of the cut of archival couture or the handcraft of the Dior ateliers. As for knitwear, it echoes sculptural form, simultaneously encompassing playful patterns, prints, and ceramic fastenings, all gleaned from Hylton Nel’s world.

Archival haute couture is revived through this season’s world, perhaps most significantly and startlingly in the finding of an unrealized Saint-Laurent sketch for a coat from the Autumn-Winter 1958 season. In this collection, it appears fully realized for the first time while informing further tailored looks. Another one is the scarf collar motif that runs throughout the collection, it is also taken from a Saint-Laurent piece, Negatif, from Autumn-Winter 1960 and is here realized as a mock ceramic structure in a completely original artisanal process. In short, Dior excellently managed to bring different worlds together most harmoniously and creatively.