What was so remarkable – and has been, throughout Jones’ tenure – is how those elements of the past, when re-energised, could appear entirely modern, even forward-thinking.
Even that is in the house tradition – Christian Dior’s much-heralded, Carmel Snow-christened ‘New Look’ was actually fashion’s biggest nostalgia trip of all, a fashion throwback to the glories of the Belle Époque, and arguably even further, to the crinolines of the Second Empire in the expansive petticoated skirts and handspan waists.
But perhaps, that was the point – a hothouse is where you breed exotic blooms, after all, and to begin the show Jones’ Dior models seemed to ‘grow’ out of the floor. The house called it a ‘mechanical garden’ and Jones’ models were masculine equivalents of Dior’s femme fleurs, in a natty piece of fashion theatre that had the audience howling their approval. That felt truly new.