PARIS — “You cannot rebuild a house in one show. It’s impossible. You’d have to be like Christ,” Jonathan Anderson said on the eve of unveiling his debut collection as creative director of Dior.
It was the Irish designer’s attempt to manage expectations ahead of the most highly anticipated event of the Paris men’s collections, and one of the most closely scrutinized designer debuts in a year of unprecedented creative upheaval at leading luxury houses.
Since Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of Dior parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, offhandedly confirmed his appointment as creative director of Dior menswear at the group’s annual general meeting in April, the pressure has been building on Anderson, fresh off a stellar decade at smaller stablemate Loewe.
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Last month, the house confirmed he would also be in charge of women’s collections and haute couture, making him the first designer since founder Christian Dior to have full purview over the house.
His appointment coincides with a general slowdown in spending on luxury goods, which has seen Dior lag the rest of LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division amid consumer pushback against a rash of post-pandemic price increases.
Anderson and Delphine Arnault, chairman and CEO of Christian Dior Couture, are on a mission to fix this. The designer cautioned that fashion critics, and shareholders, will have to settle in for the ride.
“It’s going to take five collections to break the cycle of it, and then you can kind of birth out a vision from it,” he said in an interview. “So for me, it is a process of decoding the brand, and then from that, we hope to end up with a solution.”
Though he’s long been touted as a rising star in the LVMH firmament, Anderson admitted he had not pictured himself in the hot seat at Dior, the founding brand and crown jewel of Bernard Arnault’s luxury empire.
“I would never have imagined five years ago that I would be here. So I’m trying to kind of go back to, ‘What is Christian Dior?’” he said. “I didn’t know much about Dior, so in a weird way, it’s a little like doing a Ph.D. You’re going in and trying to absorb it and then reconfigure it.”
Starting with menswear felt like a perfect entry point for Anderson, who launched his eponymous JW Anderson label as a men’s line in 2008.
“I’ve always started with men’s. I started with men’s in my own brand, I started with men’s at Loewe. I’m kind of a creature of habit and slightly superstitious, which Dior was as well,” he remarked.
Embracing the History
He teased his vision with a campaign featuring Andy Warhol’s Polaroids of two cultural icons, Lee Radziwill and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a couple of videos starring soccer player and Dior brand ambassador Kylian Mbappé. The idea was to project an attitude that will then filter into the nitty-gritty of new ready-to-wear and accessories collections.
“It’s about style. Christian Dior, the man himself, was more about archetype,” he explained, noting Dior’s proficiency at churning out architecturally inspired silhouettes.
In addition to the Bar jacket, which famously launched the New Look in 1947, Anderson pinned three archival dresses on his men’s mood board for spring 2026: the Caprice, the Cigale and the Delft. “You could probably get a show out of each of these looks, because they were radical in their moment,” he mused.
The 40-year-old was also inspired by Dior’s world-building skills. “For me, what makes Dior himself unique is that I think he has got huge amounts of empathy,” he noted.
From the beginning, the founding couturier worked with decorator Victor Grandpierre to establish key house codes including its signature colors — gray and pink — and the Louis XVI chair. In addition to decorating the label’s headquarters on Avenue Montaigne, Grandpierre designed the displays and packaging of iconic perfumes such as Miss Dior.
Dior’s obsession with the 18th century chimed with Anderson, who took it as a cue to explore historic menswear pieces, including a collection of 23 waistcoats, some of which he replicated for the show — an idea he credited to another design icon, Martin Margiela, and linked to the capabilities of Dior’s haute couture workshop.
“On the first day being introduced to the couture team, it was really fascinating that some customers still today order looks from the ‘50s, and we make them for them still, which I think is remarkable,” he said. “For me, that just shows you the power of the brand.”
He’s keen to embrace the history of the house, including the contributions of his predecessors. In addition to Dior, the women’s side has been helmed by Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri, with Hedi Slimane, Kris Van Assche and Kim Jones steering the men’s division since the new millennium.
“When you go into a house like Dior, which is so famous — taxi drivers know it, everyone knows it — I think you have to not be afraid of the past,” Anderson said. “People want history from a brand that has history, but they want it reinvented.”
That’s why he’s embraced Chiuri’s bestselling Book Tote, offering his own take with versions that reprise the cover of “Dior by Dior,” Christian Dior’s autobiography; Irish author Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” and an 18th-century classic, “Dangerous Liaisons” by Choderlos de Laclos.
“I don’t want to evaporate what every single person has contributed to this brand,” Anderson explained. “It’s not efficient, and it’s just not respectful.”
Finding Balance
Revisiting the Bar jacket was almost a rite of passage. Anderson has kissed the ring by making it the opening look of his show.
“It’s something that Dior has barked on about for probably too long, but I do think it is probably one of the most genius pieces of clothing, because ultimately it is taken from men’s and it is reconfigured every time a designer comes in, which is kind of interesting, because it’s not a bag,” he said.
Still, he doesn’t believe in being too reverential, nothing that the scale of Dior means he must speak to a large cross-section of potential consumers. Under Chiuri and Jones, the brand’s sales quadrupled from 2.2 billion euros in 2017 to 8.7 billion euros in 2024, according to HSBC estimates. LVMH does not break out revenues by brand.
“It’s a difficult balance, because the brand is bigger than it was 20 years ago, it is very democratic,” Anderson remarked. “I’m trying to juggle this thing, which is, how do you give style, attitude and fashion? How do you give the classicism? And at the same time, how do you give, like, where the world is?”
Some trial and error will be involved, but he’s willing to take risks.
“It takes time to ultimately reject things within the brand through experiencing them,” he said. “Being in a historical house, there has to be a respect for it, but at the same time, you have to be willing to challenge it, because if Dior had been alive today, he would have designed completely differently.”
To those who have speculated how he will juggle double duty at Dior with his own brand and ongoing collaboration with Japanese fast-fashion giant Uniqlo, Anderson had a simple message: no, he will not be designing 18 collections a year, as some memes have suggested. Instead, he will focus on around eight Dior lines per year, between ready-to-wear, haute couture and pre-collections.
“Of course, I was not going to be doing four at my own brand, or at some point we were doing six, because there’s no modernity, plus that people would just hate me after a while. It would be like Dua Lipa doing an album every month — it would become boring,” he said.