Autumn Winter Collection from Dunhill

The random input that shapes a designer’s vision can be a source of endless fascination to outsiders. For his debut at dunhill, Kim Jones was thinking about inspirations as varied as explorers, penguins and the painter Francis Bacon. But there was method to his seeming madness.

Take Bacon, for instance. A maverick spirit, in keeping with Alfred Dunhill himself, who, a century ago, was very much a modernist in his time. Alfred was a connoisseur of fearlessness. He admired explorers, men who pushed limits. And penguins? Well, we could all learn something salutary from that tough little bird’s rigorous formality, discipline and dedication to the task at hand.

But these were all just starting points. As Jones delved into dunhill’s past, he found an aesthetic whose combination of form and function seemed particularly right for now – and very much in keeping with his own feelings about menswear. As he says, “There’s a lot of formality within dunhill but in a way I could relate to.” In his solo career, Jones helped pioneer the mash-up of formalwear and sportswear that is evolving as the essence of 21st century menswear.

Alfred himself loved travel, so he was always looking for ways to improve the functionality of dunhill’s products. For him, technology was the servant of tradition. “That means that the whole idea of dunhill is much more contemporary than people realise,” says Jones now. There’s an all weather coat fashioned from a technical wool in the new collection, for instance, which looks distinctly modern but is actually lifted from the company archives. Look hard and you’ll also see echoes of a butcher jacket, a sailor’s jacket, things made for a reason. And Alfred’s open-mindedness encouraged Jones to experiment with high-functioning textiles. In amidst the Mongolian cashmeres, the washed cottons and vintage leathers, there are memory fabrics, nylons which look like wool, or camdeboo mohair from South Africa, which has the remarkable knack of keeping its wearer cool in summer and warm in winter.

The world of dunhill is also a much richer, stranger place than many might imagine, and that too was a perfect match for Jones’s own inclinations. Something clicked when he found a photo of

Truman Capote in an evening suit made for him by dunhill. The satin lapel, the grosgrain waistband, the frogging down the trouser legs and the square jacquard design on the buttons meant that nothing quite added up to a traditional tux. “It’s modern to have everything not matching,” says Jones. Still, as much as nothing matched, he knew he had to tie together the company’s clothes and accessories, to create one coherent, idiosyncratic entity. A world, in other words, like Bourdon House in London, or Twin Villas in Shanghai, the first outposts of dunhill’s new universe.

The archives gave Jones a lot to work with. There’s a duffel coat with toggles made from mammoth tooth. Mammoth tooth! And a watch that is fashioned after your house key. Or a version which clips to your jacket pocket, and has a shagreen backing. Shagreen! dunhill first used shagreen in 1919 and its sheen and texture evoke an exotic Deco glamour. So does the goldfish motif, which originally distinguished dunhill’s Namiki fountain-pen and is now hand-painted inside the breast-pocket of a shirt. It’s hidden, but the wearer knows it’s there, and the notion of such an exotic, private pleasure seems appropriately perverse for Jones’s re-visioning of dunhill. “Nothing with dunhill should be loud,” he insists.

His ultimate aim is to bring dunhill home, to reclaim and reinforce its roots in Britishness. There’s an envelope-fronted mackintosh in the collection whose bonded lining features a map of London. Tradition with a twist? “Classic modern – that’s what I’m after,” says Jones. “That’s why I’ve kept the show to a handful of elements: the shirt, the blazer, the suit and outerwear. That way, I can show you where dunhill’s been, and where it’s going.”