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The Life Aquatic. The starting point for Kim Jones’s SS13 collection was something Diana Vreeland once said, about water being “God’s tranquilizer”. Jones told i-D online backstage, “I love the sea, it calms you down and it’s 70% of the earth so there’s a lot to be inspired by.” With an LED screen as the backdrop, we were submerged below sea level, with a hazy view of the sun as you would see looking up from a deep sea dive. The models were fresh from a morning of watersports, hair still wet, wearing diving shoes, waterproof sandals or bright white boat shoes. For the extreme LV holiday maker, it was full body neoprene wet suits (which Jones assured us really would hold up in the waves), and life jackets, some in the familiar yellow and others in black with fully buoyant padding. Whilst many collections hint at a theme, Jones really committed, with fully functional aquatic gear that you could take straight off the catwalk and 10 meters deep into the ocean. He was inspired too by “our CEO Yves’ love of sailing”, which accounted for lightweight white shirts, boater hats and neckerchiefs. With Dundee like pride, Jones crowned his favourite item the crocodile skin jacket, but our personal favourites were the flounder fish yellow jackets with zips and wind breaker necks, and full look fishing wear, complete with fishermen’s hats. There was plenty of suave and suiting for the après watersporter too, in fact, he’d covered it all. Suffice to say, if Louis Vuitton made extreme, luxury holidays, they would be the best, most stylish extreme, luxury holidays in the world.
Text: Sarah Raphael
Photography: Mitchell Sams
Click here to see our SS13 Menswear coverage in full.
