2023/04 Dior Men – SS23
Details:
Dior Men
Spring-Summer 2023
Via Monte Napoleone 12, Milan
Review:
by Peter Hamer
may 10, 2023
This Dior Men SS23 display, in collaboration with multimedia artist Jesse Woolston, is an evolution of the original display installed in February this year. And while the obvious difference between that display and this one is the dimension, that fact is not what I find interesting about this concept. To explain why you need to know two things about this store.
The first thing is that the LED board (covering 70% of the façade) was originally installed for a concept showing Philippe Starck’s new version of Dior’s Medallion Chair during Milan Design Week.
The second thing is that this store has never dedicated all windows to Dior Men. You see, the store originally only offered women’s products as men’s products were available at the Dior Homme boutique a couple of numbers down the road. When the men’s boutique closed in 2017, Dior Homme could only be found at Rinascente but with the relaunch of Dior Men with Kim Jones in 2019, it found a permanent space inside the original women’s boutique. To inform passersby of the new product, one of the four boutique windows was dedicated to Dior Men. This strategic decision has always created visual incoherence among other window displays. The store not only has dedicated windows to Dior and Dior Men, it also has a dedicated niche window to Dior Joaillerie. Keep in mind all these brands have different creative directors and while they’re united by the brand’s name, differences are visible.
Back to the concept. While the LED board features the same animation as the original display, and the flower props are the same, there is one empty window that features a description of the collaboration. Unfortunately the font size, white color, and visually moving background made it impossible to read. Besides these details, seeing everything speak the same visual language gave more credibility to the men’s business. The original concept was shy, but seeing it in this dimension was loud. Maybe too loud? I personally think the dimension of this LED board was invasive if you consider the dimension of Via Monte Napoleone. But Dior likes to do things that are loud.
Using the installed LED board was a smart move to leverage creative content. But with such a carefully executed strategy, I wonder why the VM team did not consider taking over the Dior Joaillerie niche as well. Having done so would have taken this concept even further. Am I too harsh? I don’t think so, I just believe that at this game level, every detail is big business.
