The acclaimed menswear designer and prolific globetrotter reveals his lesser-known soft spot for animals
Kim Jones has wild animals on his mind. “Even though Singapore is a big city, there’s a lot of wildlife. People still talk about big pythons turning up in homes, there’s about 100 pangolins left in Singapore and there is a rare kind of langur that lives here,” said Jones during an interview with CNA Luxury while he was on a one-night stopover at the newly refurbished Raffles Hotel.
The global artistic director of Dior Men had just completed the Tiger Express trip by Belmond’s Eastern & Oriental Express train from Bangkok to Singapore as an ambassador for the global charity initiative Save Wild Tigers. For his whirlwind 24 hours in the little red dot, he had plans to pack his itinerary with as much animal-spotting as possible.
“I’m going to the Singapore Zoo—I think they treat their animals very well and [the zoo’s programmes are] important for the breeding of certain species. Then we’re going to try to see the family of otters that live down by the river which are very popular, because it’s really nice to see animals in the wild,” he said.
While he has garnered global acclaim as the visionary designer who has breathed new life into menswear by melding luxury with street style—during his tenure as men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton, he spearheaded the brand’s blockbuster collaboration with Supreme—there is a lesser known soft side to him.