Kim Jones, the British designer, is many things.
He is among the most celebrated men’s wear talents of his generation. He is a five-time winner of various British fashion awards, for men’s wear designer of the year, Trailblazer and Creativity, and he has received the Order of the British Empire. He is the former head of his own label, as well as Dunhill and Louis Vuitton men’s wear, and is the current head of Dior men’s wear. (He is the guy who got Vuitton to collaborate with Supreme, and Dior with Air Jordan.)
He is BFF with Kate Moss. He is a collector of rare books (about 20,000), rare vintage clubbing wear (early pieces from Vivienne Westwood and Leigh Bowery) and rare vinyl (around 6,000 records). He is a peripatetic child of Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. He is all that.
What he has not been, however, is a women’s wear designer. He did not study women’s wear at Central Saint Martins, and, at 41, has never made a full women’s collection.
Yet last September, the executives at LVMH named Mr. Jones the artistic director of women’s wear for Fendi, the position held for 54 years by Karl Lagerfeld, the most prolific, provocative and omnivorously cultured designer of the 20th and early 21st century, one of the few who transcended fashion to become practically a piece of pop art unto himself.
