This past winter, after a younger colleague said something like, “It would be wonderful to wear Dior at sixty,” I picked up a few Dior pieces and have been enjoying a register of winter dressing that’s never quite been part of my usual style.
[ The Dior Cashmere Peacoat piece ]
My image of the brands that drive the Paris collections — Dior among them — had long been that their design was excellent, but their material choices and tailoring fell short of what one finds in serious sartorie or in luxury houses that put materials first.
The cashmere peacoat I bought this winter overturned that image entirely. Its cloth and its tailoring hold their own against any sartoria or so-called luxury house.
I’ve always leaned toward American casual, and as casual wear I valued practicality over the rigor of materials and construction. The refinement and quiet authority that come from real fabric and real tailoring weren’t things I particularly looked for. But — as I’ve written in other pieces — getting older has begun to shift the way I think.
[ The Formosa Cashmere Jacket piece ]
[ The Brunello Cucinelli Corduroy Jacket piece ]
A Traditional Lineup
Dior, which I had always taken as the forward edge of mode (in the sense of contemporary fashion), turned out to carry pieces of genuine quality — pieces that could serve as enduring standards. The discovery itself has been quietly impressive.
I had thought of Dior’s clothes as something younger generations enjoy. To find pieces I could wear at my own age — middle-aged, on the older side — opened up a brand I’d not had much interest in before. It now reads as a brand worth looking at.
It was that shift of mind that led me to buy what Dior is offering this season — an oxford-cloth button-down shirt, and a slim, flat-front pair of chinos.
Beige chinos with a sky-blue button-down — the central composition of American Trad — is rebuilt here through Dior’s own lens. As a top maison whose center of gravity sits in mode, there’s an element of trend-handling in the way Dior treats Ametora, but the result is modern and clean, well-made and quietly refined: the kind of universal piece that’s easy to wear.
Dior’s traditional style
1. The Button-Down Shirt
A button-down shirt made up in oxford cloth. The smaller collar and trim body are unmistakably Dior, but the quality of the cloth and the care of the stitching hold their own against shirt specialists like FRAY.
2. A Quiet Mark
There’s a quiet Dior embroidery on the left side. The motif feels — to my eye — like it’s nodding to the made-to-order shirts at Brooks Brothers.
3. The Chinos
Slim, flat-front chinos without a pressed crease. Long a staple beyond Dior, this kind of trouser had quietly disappeared from the market in recent years. From this spring or so, I’ve started seeing them again at a handful of brands. A staple, yes — but here, cut with the slightly removed stylishness that Paris mode tends toward, and with the straight, linear construction that has carried through Dior since Hedi Slimane. The Dior of these chinos still recognizably belongs to that line.
Dior’s Chinos and Button-Down Shirt
Ametora (American Trad)
In my twenties, I was drawn to what’s known in Japan as Ametora (American Traditional) — chinos paired with button-downs or denim shirts. I wore a lot of clothes from a brand called TUBE back then.
From there I gravitated to Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren. Money was tight in my twenties and the number of pieces I could afford was limited, but I treated the few I had as cherished items and wore them carefully.
Looking back, that was the seed of how I dress now — Ralph Lauren chinos with a heather-gray Champion Reverse Weave on top, Stan Smiths or Superstars on my feet.
For shirts, I’d wear a Brooks Brothers button-down straight off the wash, or a Ralph Lauren denim shirt left open at the front over a Hanes tee. That was the silhouette of my style in those years.
The first place I ever bought Ralph Lauren chinos was Bloomingdale’s in New York. I was visiting on a trip. The staff treated me — a Japanese tourist — with real kindness, and that was what tipped me into buying.
I also stopped into Barneys’ flagship, though the prices were well beyond what I could afford then. The staff there were kind too, and I came away with a pair of Oliver Peoples sunglasses.
I have a tendency to buy when I encounter a salesperson’s enthusiasm and genuine attention (this hasn’t changed). The man at Bloomingdale’s took his time, looked carefully for what would suit me, and I bought those Ralph Lauren chinos out of how earnest and warm he was. That single pair of Ralph Lauren chinos has, in its own quiet way, shaped how I’ve dressed in the years since.
It was a music trip — that’s why I was in New York. I caught Johnny Griffin at the Village Vanguard, Leslie West at the Bottom Line, and the Anthrax / Public Enemy collaboration at the Ritz. The unexpected bonus was stopping by CBGB to pick up a hat I’d been asked to bring back as a souvenir, and finding Joey Ramone there for an event meeting. Seeing him moved me. That’s the trip I remember.
Dior’s Reading of American Trad
The oxford button-down and chinos that Dior is offering — the pieces I’m covering here — feel to me as though they have one eye on American Trad (Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers in the 1990s, that kind of register).
From around last year, Tom Ford and Brunello Cucinelli have been showing suits and jackets whose silhouettes seem to look back to late-1980s and early-1990s Armani.
There’s no direct connection between Dior’s reading of American Trad and Brunello Cucinelli’s reading of Armani, of course. But viewed in terms of period feeling, the Armani suit and American Trad — though running on different trend cycles in real time — both belonged to the late-1980s through 1990s mood, and I sense that several brands are now drawing on that era’s atmosphere.
Trends tend to circle back over time, and I get the feeling that what was current from the late 1980s into the 1990s is now entering its return cycle.
American Trad is a style I’ve always liked, but it’s been a long while since I’ve actually worn it, and now it feels fresh again.
The Button-Down Shirt
What caught my eye was the oxford-cloth button-down. Compared to Dior’s traditional formal shirts — cotton poplin, designed to live under a suit or jacket — this one keeps the slim cut that’s identifiably Dior, but uses a substantial, well-bodied oxford cloth, runs slightly shorter in the body, and is built on the premise of being worn untucked.
I owned and wore a few Dior shirts from the Hedi Slimane era. The button-down on offer this season still carries forward several elements of that iconic period — the small collar shape, the trim armhole.
Dior shirts carry their mode sensibility, and even tossed on over a pair of jeans, they bring a distinct atmosphere with them — though I’d say they sit more naturally with Dior’s slim denim than with a standard 501.
When I wear a button-down with denim, I usually leave it unironed and wear it straight from the wash; with chinos, I press it. The Dior oxford works differently — it leaves room for a more relaxed American Trad register too.
What surprised me about wearing this shirt was that — for all that the silhouette is Dior mode — there’s a hand-made quality to the construction, and the cloth choice gives it the air of something made up at an Italian camiceria.
The motif is the Brooks Brothers button-down, but the shirt itself isn’t an American industrial product. It carries the texture of an Italian tailored shirt, and that single garment ends up showing several different faces depending on how you wear it.
The Chinos
What caught my eye, alongside the oxford shirt, was the slim, flat-front, uncreased chinos. The fabric is a lighter cotton you tend to see in spring and summer collections — easy to wear, useful in daily rotation.
The slim chino with a pronounced taper, of the sort that Italian brands like PT Torino or Incotex offer, is easy enough to find. But the older American style — slim without a heavy taper — seems to have lacked a market in recent years, and I’d been unable to find a pair I wanted to wear, even when I went looking.
A pair of Visvim German-corduroy trousers I bought this winter turned out to be unexpectedly fine, so I broadened my search across brands, and in the Spring/Summer collection by Jonathan Anderson — who took over as Dior’s new designer this season — I found these slim chinos. They caught my interest, and once I tried them on, the cleanness of the line was exactly what I’d had in mind. I bought them.
The motif is the American chino, but cut to Dior’s signature slim line with a straight, almost geometric construction. The result is trousers that present the leg cleanly and read as an excellent piece of styling.
The combination above — button-down with chinos — is a staple American Trad pairing that I’ve always liked and that I find myself wanting to return to periodically. With Dior’s particular cleanness layered on top, it becomes a clean composition that holds several different registers at once.