Dior paid homage to ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev on Friday, with a menswear collection inspired by stage costumes and presented on an elaborate moving set.

Designer Kim Jones told AFP he was influenced by “the spirit of performance” to create stage wear that could create “an extravaganza at home”.

To the stirring brass and strings of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the models emerged in a steel-grey stage that ultimately rose into spinning platforms like a giant music box.

Jones said he was paying tribute to his uncle Colin Jones, a classical dancer, and photojournalist who produced a rare intimate series of photos of Nureyev, the Soviet dancer who defected to the West in the 1960s and was arguably the most famous classical dancer of his generation up to his death in 1993.

“With the history of Dior and the ballet, they were a path, a source,” the British designer told AFP before the show. 

The sober collection included some nods to Nureyev’s costumes and personal style in some of the baggy trousers and turbans. 

There were also more dazzling outfits, with sequins and bare-skin tops, while other styles saw boyish long socks and shorts over bare knees. 

Elaborate kimonos mixed with Jones’s signature suits, with wrap closures and double breasting, and a lot of brown.

Jones said he imagined “a meeting of utility and splendor that is both functional and poetic.”