Jonathan Anderson's Dior Man Is a Delight
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There's a new (new, new) look at Dior.
After weeks of teasing glimpses, Jonathan Anderson has finally started to unveil his vision for the nearly 80-year-old fashion house. At Les Invalides in Paris, Anderson showed his debut collection for Dior men's and presented an entirely fresh vernacular for the global brand—one that delicately balanced the historical with the present while presenting lots of propositions for the future.
The livestream began with videos of brand ambassadors traveling to the show. Lakeith Stanfield and Josh O'Connor chitchatted in the back of the cab, while Robert Pattinson leisurely strolled into an elevator. All of these guys were decked out in Anderson's new Dior, or perhaps it was less decked out and more dressed. Impossibly stylish, the clothes bend the arch between a dapper man and someone who's a bit of a scoundrel.
Outside, Anderson collaborator and friend the director Luca Guadagnino was filming some of the recognizable guests who began to arrive, like Sam Nivola and Donatella Versace. Rihanna and A$AP Rocky were there. Sabrina Carpenter pulled up wearing an Anderson-ized version of Dior's New Look. Inside the venue, a nearly-empty gallery space had been built, punctuated only by light parquet floors and wooden blocks for seats. The walls were sparsely hung with still life paintings by Old Masters like Jean Siméon Chardin, whose work Monsieur Dior was fond of. Other than Versace, several more designers came out to support Anderson, including Pierpaolo Piccioli and Matthieu Blazy, both set to make their own debuts, at Balenciaga and Chanel respectively, this fall.
The anticipation for this collection was high, to say the least. Once the first look hit the runway, it was clear just how much the hype had been warranted. Bang out of the gate, a hit: Anderson paired a Donegal tweed bar jacket with ballooning cargo shorts fastened with a pleated, cascading bustle at the back, a design loosely inspired by the mille-feuille dress silhouettes Monsieur Dior showed at the beginning of his career. Everything that followed painted a delightful, whip-smart portrait of the past infused with the present. Riffing off of ideas from his final womenswear collection for Loewe last year, Anderson wrote in the show notes that these pieces were meant to signify 'a reconstruction of formality' and celebrate the 'joy in the art of dressing: a spontaneous, empathetic collusion of then and now, of relics of the past things rediscovered in the archives, classic tropes of class, and pieces that have endured the test of time.'
For any other designer, finding resonance with 'then and now' at a storied house might manifest itself as a re-issue. Anderson is one of the most important designers of his generation because he understands how not to do that. He makes things that are recognizable and ripped from history books and turns them into something we've never seen before. For Spring 2026, Anderson did this by crafting precise replicas of embroidered waistcoats and pairing them with white jeans and sneakers. Basic neckties were loose and worn flipped over to reveal Anderson's revamp of the Dior logo—a journey back to its roots when M. Dior, in his exacting way, would only settle for a French-style font. There were classic cravats and rococo-style micro-florals set against athletic socks and fisherman sandals. Anderson's new book totes were carried throughout the show, touting titles like Bonjour Tristesse and In Cold Blood—accessories for a hot dude who reads. The capes and maxi shirt-dresses added touches of Anderson's signature kookiness, abstracting and bending the idea of time even further. These men were dandy and regal, but also a little rough around the edges, the kind that Anderson has made into a bona fide style archetype over the last decade.
No one else could, at least in this moment, make eighteenth-century wardrobe staples feel like they belonged with a pair of barrel leg jeans. Anderson imagines completely unimaginable wardrobes for those outside of the fashion sphere, for those who never thought a tie could be worn backwards or a pair of cargos could sashay. The biggest challenge of these gargantuan creative director jobs at luxury houses is being everything to everyone—being a creative director whose clothes, marketing, ambassadors, and accessories appeal to the classic brand loyalists, the high-net worth clients who want a logo splattered all over their bodies, and the kids who are looking for someone to tell them what's coming next. Anderson can imagine something for every luxury customer, and he has the vision to build new sartorial archetypes through instinctive design.
He got a standing ovation of course, walking out with a shy swagger, the kind we'd just witnessed reverberate through the clothes he showed on the runway. This is the delight and the dream of Anderson. It was then, it is now, and it will be as he keeps moving ahead at Dior.
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Business of Fashion
3 hours ago
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CNN
10 hours ago
- CNN
See Jonathan Anderson's highly anticipated Dior debut
Jonathan Anderson, founder of JW Anderson, made his debut as creative director of Dior. His collection, Dior menswear Spring/Summer 2026, was showcased during Paris Fashion Week.
