If Kim Jones’ Dior Homme was the tidy prefect, pressed pleats and polite polish, Jonathan Anderson’s Dior barges into roll call half-buttoned and late, but well dressed. The set looks solemn at first, a velvet replica of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie keeping two Jean-Siméon Chardin still-lifes on guard. Then the first model walks out. Jackets are slapped onto bare torsos, bow ties park where collars should sit, a boot-cut jean beside a Bermuda short so wide it flirts with ball-skirt territory.
Anderson has always trusted the power of an image. Days before the show, Kylian Mbappé’s staged tuxedo-knot flop flooded every feed. It cost nothing and sold everything. “As I began exploring my vision for the House, I kept returning to these photographs of Radziwill and Basquiat who are both, for me, the epitome of style. Warhol manages to capture that natural instinct in pictures that are almost impossible to date, conveying a quality that’s as contemporary and relevant now as it was then. Sometimes you're just born modern,” he says. The quote is neat; the clothes prove the point.
Picture a Gen-Z time-traveller emptying a 1920s boarding-school wardrobe, trying on everything at once, refusing to button anything. Donegal tweeds are trimmed for speed. Regimental ties hang like hung-over apologies. Bar jackets and tailcoats keep their nineteenth-century stitches yet swing like capes. Roses shrink to pin-prick embroidery, rococo Diorette charms wink at the hem. Each look feels yanked on in a hurry, then lands with sniper precision.
Accessories bite harder. Sheila Hicks grows linen ponytails from the Lady Dior. Book Totes flash printed first editions of Les Fleurs du Mal and In Cold Blood. A Bram Stoker tote stalks the runway. Anderson also turns the CD monogram into an adjustable strap on bags finally big enough for an office commute. That is power dressing without the volume knob stuck on loud.
Robert Pattinson seals the mood in the preview film. He demolishes a soft-boiled egg, shrugs into a bomber, drops cubed sunglasses, then bolts as if the Uber has been honking since dawn. Anderson’s new Dior writes one rule: arrive panting, look like you raided three wardrobes blindfolded, still leave as the best-dressed person in the room.
