Eli Russell Linnetz Is Guest Designing Dior Men's Upcoming Spring Capsule

Eli Russell Linnetz, the founder of the buzzy label ERL, will be joining Dior Men to guest design the house's spring collection in collaboration with Kim Jones.

The Spring 2022 capsule line is set to be revealed in a presentation in Venice Beach this coming Thursday. According to WWD, the range features "a flamboyant mix of skatewear, tailoring and maximalist references from the ’90s," with specific items including a micro version of the Saddle bag.

Linnetz, who has become one of the buzziest designers this past year, has dressed A$AP Rocky for the 2021 Met Gala and is one of eight finalists for the LVMH Prize.

Jones spoke of his partnership with the rising designer: "For me, it’s nice to have a platform where you can support people openly... I’m doing two projects like this this year, and that’s it, and I thought it was nice to work with younger designers I admire and give them the platform through Dior in a different way." He added: "Talking to all the people that I know that have gone through the pandemic and being independent, it’s been difficult, so I thought it was a nice way to support people and also, glean a bit of how they’re working. It gives us the capacity to do something in a different way than we’d work on it as Dior."

Linnetz further explained the inspiration behind the collaborative capsule. "Kim gave me the freedom to go in the archive and really explore things that maybe he hadn’t touched on before, and then I brought it back to him and he could really curate those designs. We were looking at the archive in the year when I was born, so we were interested and started at Gianfranco Ferré in the ’90s."

Dior's Spring 2022 menswear collection will be revealed on May 19 in Venice Beach.