Dunhill's travelling gentleman

Dunhill AW10

You might have noticed that our coverage of the activity in Milan and Paris has been a little sparse. It is not because we feel uninspired by the catwalk but rather the opposite, we are a little overwhelmed and are just soaking it all in before posting a full round of our favourite looks. However we could not continue such a measured approached for Last year's British menswear designer of the year Kim Jones. Jones' has once again demonstrated his brilliance for Dunhill's AW10 offering. After drooling over Dunhill's SS10 collection last season, I have been salivating over the thought of seeing Jones' vision for AW10 (so much so in fact that even Pavlov's dog have been giving me that all too familiar disapproving glance). Thankfully the waiting is over and the collection is everything I wanted and expected it to be. A fusion of heritage with modern day luxury.


As with SS10, Jones has picked out key inspirations from Dunhill's illustrious past and repackaged them for the new era of luxury. In an interview with Wallpaper last year it was quite obvious that Jones' takes great delight in investigating the past whilst adding his own innovation to create the Dunhill of today. The heritage of Dunhill is so broad and so darn British, from its beginnings with the birth of the car to creating luxury accessories for motorcycling, aviation and the oh-so-fashionable smokers in the Roaring Twenties. For AW10, the central inspiration is the journey of Clement Court and his role in expanding the Dunhill empire.

Clement Court established Dunhill's French business in the twenties before expanding to Kyoto via Mongolia and Russia in 1930. Court helped the name of Dunhill to become synonymous with quality the world over. Like Alfred Dunhill himself, Clement enjoyed an enthusiasm for exquisite and unique collectable art. This passion impacted on the product sold in-store and saw the Paris shop develop into an stylish boutique and gain the following description: “Le Rendez-Vous Elegance.” I am intrigued by this gentleman and will hunt down as much information as possible in the coming days whilst resisting the urge to pack up my suitcase and travel the globe myself...

The collection itself is full of very British looking suits mixed with lots of cashmere knits and heavy wool outerwear. It has been inspired by an entrepreneurial, passionate travelling English gentleman who demonstrated exceedingly good taste levels in everything he did and Jones' interpretation is undoubtedly fit for the modern day Clement Court. For a brand with such strong roots, any steering by Jones has been to emphasise them – those being the characteristics of classicism and understatement but his challenge was to present these with a wholly modern personality too which he has surely done with this collection.