Jonathan Anderson’s Dior
- Matthias Find
- Jul 5
- 2 min read
When Jonathan Anderson was named Creative Director of Dior Homme in 2025, the appointment was less a passing of the torch than a seismic shift. For the first time since Christian Dior himself, a single designer holds unilateral creative dominion over the house—a privilege that even world-renowned designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Raf Simons didn’t have. Anderson, the Northen Irish designer who reshaped Loewe into a bastion of cerebral whimsy, arrives at Dior with a reputation for marrying historical reverence with avant-garde audacity. His tenure at Loewe was marked by a subversive interplay of craft and concept, from porcelain corsets to surrealist and precision leatherwork, transforming the Spanish brand from a previously dormant label to the fourth most searched brand in 2024.
REACHING INTO THE PAST
As expected, the debut of someone with a portfolio and trail of success as great as that attached to Anderson was one of the most discussed and highly anticipated shows at the recently concluded Paris Fashion Week, which ran from June 23rd to the 28th. Previews of the shows released by Dior in the weeks leading up to the event quoted Anderson by stating “You have to decode and recode Dior… Modernity can be found by not being scared of the past.” To me, Anderson’s genius lies in his ability to distill Dior’s archival essence into disruptive new geometries. The collection’s opening look—a deconstructed trench coat in liquid patent leather—immediately announced his intent: traditionalism upended by texture. The trench, a nod to Dior’s postwar utilitarianism, was sliced into asymmetrical panels, its seams left raw as if still in the atelier.
One of the most discussed pieces came in the recurring folds and colours of the of cargo shorts that dominated the looks on the runway. For Anderson, he took elements from delicate pleats of Dior’s 1948 Delft Dress that debuted in the 1948 Fall Winter Collection, back when Christian Dior was still creative director. Where the original gown was a homage to Dutch porcelain, Anderson’s iteration was a study in contrast: rugged functionality rendered in haute couture materials.
OFF THE RUNWAY
Anderson’s references to the past doesn’t just end on the runway. The invitations sent to guests such as A$AP Rocky, Sabrina Carpenter and other front-row guests at show consisted of a porcelain set of eggs, hand painted by Dior artisans. They serve as a direct nod to both the 19th-century French faience trompe l’oeil that saw itself in the homes of French aristocrats and one of Anderson’s favorite paintings, Four Eggs on a Plate by British painter Lucian Freud.
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