Christian Dior is a cultural icon in France and while Jonathan Anderson has started somewhat of an international youth quake at the brand by choosing new ambassadors like Mikey Madison and Josh O’Connor (yes, there are still Charlize and Johnny), he dialed down his Gemäldegalerie and other global art world references for his second ready-to-wear show and went all out on la France. The inspiration was Claude Monet‘s water garden in Giverny and not only did the master of the water lily paintings find his way on the color palette of the show with all soft pastels, Anderson had a spectacular green house set up over the pond in the Tuileries which looked like it was built by French design icon Charlotte Perriand who is currently trending with a big show of all her work at the Kunstmuseum in Krefeld. It was a happy spot to gather for the fashion community to admire the beautiful sunny set and his dresses which often had large flowers attached on dresses. Even his earlier wild silhouettes were reined in as the choice of elaborate silk jacquards for lots of 18th century aristocratic frock jackets felt very much in the spirit of Dior designs by Marc Bohan from the 70’s and 80’s while the coats took direct cues from Monsieur Dior himself. Of course, mixing is what Anderson does well so this very client minded show had a large offering of cool pants from jeans to jodhpurs. The shape shifting was still in place with organza ruffle stuffed bar jackets and a killer opening look of mini ball skirt with train.