During every of the numerous times that I have interviewed Kim Jones, he’s discussed the notion of looking further, of digging deeper. The artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton gives, on occasion, a talk at Central Saint Martins in London, the fashion school at which he studied, and he tires of seeing the same ideas repeated over and over again. “I say to the students ‘go and find the magazine that that picture you found online comes from and look at the page before it and after it and see if there’s something else you might like, because everyone else has got the same picture in their portfolio.’”

Mr Jones isn’t averse to the practice of referencing – in truth, any designer that denies being influenced by some other force is deluding themselves – but in the hands of any lesser creative the ideas and themes he explores might be fraught with tension. Rather, the designer has a way of taking the traditional or banal or obscure and modernising it for a contemporary audience in the luxury context for which Louis Vuitton is known.

Mr Jones’s seasonal design concepts are often rooted in geographic specificity – India for spring 2015, for example – and for his most recent fall collection, he looked to London, marking 130 years since Louis Vuitton opened its first store outside of France, in the United Kingdom. But rather than adopting a strain of British aesthetics, whatever that might be, Mr Jones looked to one of the country’s most innovative creative exports (and his favourite designer) Christopher Nemeth. It’s not a name that’s greatly known, at least outside of subcultural fashion circles, but Mr Nemeth, who worked for the most part in Tokyo, Japan, was until his death in 2011 was one of most subversive designers of the 20^th century, and considered the making of clothes no less artistically significant than painting or sculpture. And it’s a rather fitting match, too, given both the French house and Mr Nemeth share a common interest craftsmanship.

Like the house’s previous collaborations with artists such as Stephen Sprouse and Yayoi Kusama, the project was with integrity – rather than an artist’s prints on handbags – with Mr Jones engaging many of Mr Nemeth’s collaborators, in lieu of the artist himself, including stylist and jeweller Judy Blame, cordwainer John Moore and photographer Mark Lebon. “It’s nice that this extended family of sorts were involved in and at the show. I really wanted to do something to celebrate his life because I felt like his work was something that people didn’t know enough about,” explains Mr Jones of the impetus behind the collection.

“It was about taking an insider’s cool thing and letting the world know how great it is, and it’s a real privilege to be able to do that on such a big platform as Vuitton affords.” And with permission from the late artist’s wife and daughters, who now manage Mr Nemeth’s estate, Mr Jones was able to access the well-organised archive of work. In that way, the collection employs four of Mr Nemeth’s archival prints, but used in such innovative ways as to render them completely original. A shearling fabric was laser-etched – a production feat in its own right – with one of the patterns, while bonded cashmere was embossed with a cork pattern.

Of all of Mr Jones’ collections for Louis Vuitton, this fall/winter 2015 collection was received with the greatest praise from the fashion press, the collection an evocative and successful fusion of niche, historical ideas and big-brand manufacturing nous. But what pleased Mr Jones most was the broader public response to and appreciation of Mr Nemeth’s practice. “It was amazing to go on to Instagram and real all of the comments, to see just how many people went to Japan to buy his clothes,” explains the designer. “He’s someone that has always been really important to me and so much of the stuff I do now is about passing that information on to people that might not know about it.”