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DIOR X KENNY SCHARF

AT THE SELFRIDGES CORNER SHOP

4 - 29 May

Brightening up our world (and our wardrobes) Dior x Kenny Scharf’s collection has landed at the Selfridges Corner Shop.

DIOR X KENNY SCHARF

AT THE SELFRIDGES CORNER SHOP

4 - 29 May

Brightening up our world (and our wardrobes) Dior x Kenny Scharf’s collection has landed at the Selfridges Corner Shop.

The inspiration behind Dior’s Pre-Fall 2021 collection, legendary surrealist pop artist Kenny Scharf is the latest in a long string of collaborations with contemporary artists including Daniel Arsham and KAWS. Designed to bring a sense of joy and hope, the Dior Homme collection features Kenny’s poppy prints (a mix of his archives and more recent work) sprawled across everything from shirts with kaleidoscopic prints and monogrammed bags. 

 

Alongside pieces from the collection, the Dior x Kenny Scharf space at the Corner Shop – the only one of its kind in the UK – will also showcase exclusive-to-Selfridges pieces (from T-shirts to sneakers) with Kenny’s fantastical motifs and upcycled Dior denim.

 

Discover the collection at the Corner Shop amongst spectacular Kenny Scharf-inspired sculptures and trippy interactive screens, or shop it via a video call with one our in-house experts at Dior – simply click below or call +44 207 788 6155 to book an appointment. 

 

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WHEN POP ART AND HIGH FASHION COLLIDE

To celebrate this landmark launch, we asked writer and trend consultant Samuel Trotman (@samutaro on Instagram) to unpack the cultural significance of Dior’s collaboration with the iconic pop artist Kenny Scharf.

Dior Homme Pre-Fall 21 in collaboration with Kenny Scharf. Photographed by Rafael Pavarotti

This month, the Selfridges Corner Shop will be popping with the cartoon-like paintings of contemporary artist Kenny Scharf as part of a new installation celebrating his collaboration with Dior. Kim Jones, Dior menswear’s Artistic Director, tapped the American artist for his Pre-Fall 2021 men’s collection, drawing inspiration from the dazzling characters that have been at the centre of Scharf’s practice since the 1980s.

 

The electric acclaim Kim Jones has brought to Dior menswear since he took the reins in 2018 has centered on the list of contemporary artists that he has introduced to the orbit of Dior’s universe – seven of them, already, in two years. Earlier collections with heavy hitters such as KAWS, Hajime Sorayama and Daniel Arsham were showcased within the buzzy atmosphere of Paris Fashion Week with large-scale catwalk shows, but everything was very different in the autumn of 2020. That didn’t prevent the collaboration between Jones and 62-year-old artist Scharf, whose dazzling neon paintings injected the online-only fashion schedule with a post-pop tonic we all needed.

 

“When we started the collection, we were coming out of the first lockdown and I wanted to spread some joy, happiness and hope,” says Kim Jones, Artistic Director of Dior men’s collections in an exclusive video presenting the expertise that went into his Pre-Fall 2021 collection. 

Dior Homme Pre-Fall 21 in collaboration with Kenny Scharf. Photographed by Alfredo Piola

The designer says he wanted to share a wave of optimism, drawing inspiration from Scharf’s cartoonish, surrealist paintings. Jones had stumbled across some books on the American artist whilst reorganising his home during lockdown. They felt right for now. “That downtown scene of the early 80s is something I’ve always been obsessed about,” Jones says. “The fact that people grew up together and became successful together. It was such a united front.”

 


Jones has remade Dior menswear from top to bottom in the three years since his debut using the same fusion of couture and street, so it only seems natural that the two come together for the project. 

Born in 1958 and raised in Southern California, Scharf moved to New York City in the late 70s where he completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at the School of Visual Arts. It was there that he befriended such luminaries as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Together the trio gained notoriety and fame in the East Village art scene of the 1980s thanks to their inimitable street art. “I grew up in Southern California, but when I moved to New York I learned all about the street culture and that to me is what was exciting. I understood that language and I understood the visuals of the airbrush and I wanted to be a part of it.” 

 

Often painting improvisationally, many of Scharf’s large-scale murals of anthropomorphic animals and imagined creatures still adorn New York streets to this day. “Part of what I do and what I want to do is I want to bring art into the everyday life,” the artist has said of his street practice. “If you’re just walking in the street and you're confronted by something, that might change your day it might inspire you.” While much of Scharf’s work now hangs in galleries and can fetch up to six figures, he is still very active in the streets. If you live in NYC, chances are you've seen some of the 300 cars he tagged with his imaginary creatures as part of his Karbombz public art project.

 

A huge fan of science fiction, Scharf’s stylised aliens are created solely using spray cans typically used in street art. But he doesn’t see it as graffiti. “I’ve never considered myself a graffiti artist, although I do use spray paint and I did spray all over New York City.” Instead, he uses the vivid colours as a way to infuse his work with humour.  “I love the clash of colours – yellow and purple, orange and blue, red and green. When you take the happy and sad opposites and put them together, it creates the tension and excitement that I love.”

Dior Homme Pre-Fall 21 in collaboration with Kenny Scharf. Photographed by Rafael Pavarotti / Video courtesy of Dior

Celebrating and platforming Scharf’s work for a luxury fashion market meant, among other things, translating the visual energy of his paintings through Dior’s Savoir-Faire tradition. Together, the designer and the artist selected contemporary pieces and older ones to reproduce, including When the Worlds Collide, a 1984 canvas in the Whitney’s permanent collection. Scharf also designed 12 Chinese zodiac signs for Dior Pre-Fall 2021’s knits, as well as stunning jade jewellery by Yoon Ahn. “I just wanted it to be a very full-on version, using specific techniques to recreate his work in really beautiful ways, to make it even more Pop,” Jones said. 

 

Scharf’s large-scale murals of anthropomorphic animals and imagined creatures still adorn New York streets to this day.

The designer drafted in the expertise of specialist Chinese artisans who rendered his work in delicate seed embroideries. “It’s one of the oldest embroidery techniques in the world,” explains one of Dior designers in the video The Savoir-Faire Behind the Fall 2021 Dior Men’s Collection. “You can see tiny, tiny, tiny wrapped loops of yarn creating seed knots. It’s one of the most intensely worked, highly skilled stitches that exist in the history of Chinese embroidery.”

 

Tambourine-style berets – a favourite of Christian Dior – were designed by Stephen Jones, and featured thousands of tiny pearls and stitches that were embroidered using the centuries-old Chinese technique to meticulously reproduce Scharf’s fantastical cartoon characters. In other parts of the collection, patterns were rendered through technical jacquards and AI-enabled printing techniques that helped the team to create detailed versions of Scarf’s paintings. “Kim really studied my work and took the time to understand where I’m coming from and what I’m trying to convey,” said Scharf on the collection. “I am so thrilled with the way Kim and Dior interpreted and incorporated my art into the clothes.” 

Dior Homme Pre-Fall 21 in collaboration with Kenny Scharf. Photographed by Adrien Dirand

This isn’t Scharf’s first foray into fashion. The artist had his first solo exhibition at New York’s Fiorucci boutique in 1979 and the earliest fashion hook-up was with Stephen Sprouse. Just as he used the guerilla tactics of spray painting in New York’s streets and subways to communicate his ideas to the public, clothing has offered him another platform to put his message out there.

 

The collaboration with Dior is indicative of Jones’s taste for creatives that are in vogue in contemporary art scenes but also enjoy a youthful following. “You see young kids being excited by Kenny Scharf’s work. It’s speaking across generations,” Jones said. Much like the link-up with KAWS and Hajime Sorayama, the Scharf collaboration succeeds in delivering that marketable crossover appeal that has denoted Jones’s work for Dior. 

 

 

The collaboration with Dior is indicative of Jones’s taste for creatives that are in vogue in contemporary art scenes but also enjoy a youthful following.

In recent years, Scharf has continued to prove his ability to tread between the lines of street and fine art, having worked with contemporary streetwear labels such as The Hundreds and Heron Preston, and brands as commercial as Zara and G-Shock in the past. It is this synthesis of high and low that resonated with Jones when selecting Scharf for the collaboration. Jones has remade Dior menswear from top to bottom in the three years since his debut using the same fusion of couture and street so it only seems natural that the two come together for the project. 

Dior Homme Pre-Fall 21 in collaboration with Kenny Scharf. Photographed by Rafael Pavarotti

 

The collection was originally intended to be presented in Beijing, as an acknowledgement of the brand’s significant following in China. Of course, when the pandemic showed little sign of halting, Jones and his team were forced to rethink, and opted to present it digitally instead. Jones has preternatural ability for creating buzz; recall the giant KAWS teddy he engineered in his debut show. Despite live catwalk shows being halted, it didn’t stop him offering another incredible presentation, albeit virtually. Jones looked to the scenography of French director Thomas Vanz, who also shares a fascination with sci-fi and astrophysics. His colourful ink and glitter videos created a magical galaxy as the backdrop for Jones’s silhouettes that took the viewer on an intergalactic journey to a soundtrack of Deee-Lite.

 

Recreating the feel of the Dior Fall 2021 presentation, The Selfridges Corner Shop will be home to Kenny Scharf’s light-hearted creatures, in the form of spectacular sculptures, three-dimensional stickers and immersive scenography that features an interactive motion sensor screen. You can also book a virtual appointment with one of our in-house experts at Dior – simply click below (or call +44 207 788 6155) to book now.

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