POST EDIT: Dior Men autumn 2022 collection pays homage to classic novel On the Road with ‘a hymn to counterculture’

Kim Jones, the artistic director of Dior Men, is a known bibliophile – his collection of books rivals that of the late designer Karl Lagerfeld – and he is an avowed fan of authors such as Virginia Woolf.

Jones is also a lifelong nomad – as a child, he lived in South America, the Caribbean and Africa.

His two passions – books and travel – are at the heart of the designer’s autumn 2022 collection for Dior Men, which pays homage to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, a 1957 novel by the American novelist and poet that defined an entire generation.

The show, which was held in London in December, was “a hymn to counterculture” and celebrated Parisian savoir faire combined with laid-back American sportswear.

Models paraded down a catwalk 80 metres (262ft) long that depicted the scroll on which Kerouac is said to have written On the Road, which Jones calls “a rite of passage book”.

Jones’ memory of seeing Kerouac’s tweed jacket at the Beat Generation Museum in San Francisco, in the US, as a teenager was the starting point for the collection, which features retro touches such as Fair Isle jumpers and distressed denim as well as sporty pieces like shorts in technical nylon paired with hiking boots.

This article is presented in partnership with Dior Men.