THE COLLECTOR

—On Zoom, Dior’s Artistic Director of menswear, Kim Jones, is sitting in front of an abundance of books, organised meticulously along metal shelves. He runs to one, bringing it back to the camera to show it off. It is weighty, and leather–bound; a first edition of Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. “Look,” Jones says, opening it to a dedication; “Vita, from Virginia. Monday October 11th 1928.” “Vita” refers to Vita Sackville–West, a writer, Woolf ’s lover and the inspiration for Orlando, Woolf ’s adored novel, in which a poet travels across centuries, changing sex from man to woman. Jones has acquired the majority of Woolf ’s gifts to Sackville–West. “This is all Virginia,” he says, pointing to a run of red books behind him. “And those,” he says, gesturing to a row of blue spines, “those are Hogarth Press”, the publishing house founded by Woolf and her husband to release books by the Bloombsury Group, which included, alongside the Woolfs, English writers, intellectuals and artists such as Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and John Maynard Keynes. Above, there are more rare books; Allen Ginsberg and other Beat poets. And below, various rare copies of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

Creative director at Dior Homme and now at Fendi, KIM JONES is the archetypal busy man. For Vogue Hommes, the designer at the summit of fashion reveals his secret garden. As a compulsive and enterprising collector, he has over time amassed the iconic pieces of the 1980s, and now the books of the Bloomsbury Group, alongside works of art. He explains how intimate knowledge of past creations stimulates and inspires him in imagining the future of fashion.

Jones is a collector. It is an impulse, an obsession. He has collected clothing, books and art. He also collects ephemera relating to his other collections: letters, photographs and sales information. Over the