KAWS has collaborated with Dior twice. The first partnership began with Kim Jones’s debut Dior Men show for Summer 2019, staged on June 23, 2018 in Paris, where KAWS reworked the house bee and anchored the runway with a monumental floral BFF. The second arrived in early 2025 for the Year of the Snake capsule, built around a serpentine reimagining of the DIOR logo across ready-to-wear and accessories. Together they map how KAWS threads art spectacle through luxury craft, and how Dior translates that energy into products collectors chase.

2018/19: Bees, BFFs, and a Garden of Scale

For Dior’s Summer 2019 menswear show, KAWS reinterpreted the house’s bee symbol with crossed-out eyes and introduced his graphic take on the DIOR lettering. At center stage stood a roughly 10-meter, about 33-foot, BFF rendered in around 70,000 flowers, a towering figure that nodded to Christian Dior and his dog Bobby. The moment set the tone for Kim Jones’s artist-forward approach, blending couture codes with contemporary art and street influence.
The collection mixed tailoring with graphic staples, from tees and hoodies to bags and sneakers, and the floral BFF later fronted the campaign. Dior also produced an ultra-limited BFF plush dressed in a miniature Dior suit, executed in black and pink colorways, editioned to 500 pieces each (plus 50 AP Each) and housed in plexiglas cases. Retail deliveries spanned late 2018 into 2019, cementing the bee and BFF motifs as touch points that collectors still reference.

2025: Year of the Snake Capsule

Dior and KAWS reunited for a Lunar New Year release centered on a snake that winds through the DIOR logotype, and in places twists into a playful “CD.” The motif carried across ready-to-wear and accessories, including jackets, shirts, knits, hats, small leather goods, and sneakers like the B33, B57, and the B35 NXXT. The capsule landed at the start of January 2025 in Dior boutiques worldwide and continued to be promoted through the season.

Why It Matters

The 2018/19 collaboration demonstrated KAWS’s skill in creating cultural moments—transforming a Paris runway into an art installation and pushing product into the realm of collectible art. The Dior BFF plush and the monumental floral sculpture bridged the worlds of high fashion, art, and pop culture. In 2025, the collaboration leaned into subtle logo manipulation and product-led storytelling, proving that the partnership works just as well at an intimate scale as it does in grand spectacle. Both projects are now reference points for how artist-brand collaborations can shape the cultural conversation.