His ambition has taken him to the highest job in fashion. By joining the house of Dior, Jonathan Anderson is now an Haute Couture, and women’s and men’s ready-to-wear designer. Oh yes, and Cruise and so on. He is the first person to ever hold that title since Dior himself, and given the size of the maison and the budgets that come with it, his mandate is to change the status quo in the fashion world. Make it about creativity, design and ideas which the house has lacked of late. His debut men’s wear show was about haute preppy and subtle dandyism with lots of historical references and great commercial pieces like trenches and deep cowl neck tops and a thorough exploration of all things denim.

It didn’t stun the industry but it was a strong debut which ignored any references to his predecessors Slimane, van Assche and Jones but accurately mirrored Anderson’s design template of singling out archetypes like a neck ruffle and applying it as a styling accessory throughout or simply turning ties around so that the label was visible. It’s a bit Dada, it’s funny and it looks new. Putting thought into the clothes before they are designed and imbuing them with a story is the north star of Anderson’s world. References to the founder were plenty. And his bar jacket comes in – of course – Irish Donegal tweed and was his look number 1.  The shorts with voluminous pleats – a recent Loewe obsession – with yards of fabric was a direct reference to the 1948 Delft dress.

What came to mind?

Seeing director Luca Guadagnino storming backstage as first well-wisher – he has worked with Anderson on several films like Challengers — we could not help thinking that the neck ruffles and layered shorts were right out of a future costume design project Anderson and Guadagnino cooked up for a film maybe called “The Clash prep school”.

Standout?

There was a whole section of replica historical garments from the 18^th century like gold ornamented frock coats, but Anderson combined them with denim and sneakers. This hi and low approach informed the entire collection.  The knitwear with old French embroideries and the novel logo placement in the middle of the chest looked terrific.

People will run for?

Anderson, who is a fantastic trouser designer, kept things really relaxed to juxtapose his often bare-chest frock coats. All the denim and chino pants in faded washes and voluminous legs looked fantastic and was an obvious cash register gesture.

The art and music fiend?

Anderson modeled his show space after the velvet-lined rooms of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie nodding to the recent emerging fashions shown there at the Berliner Salon by Christiane Arp and Marcus Kurz and showed two still life paintings by Jean Siméon Chardin. The show space as art gallery function is straight out of his Loewe playbook. There was also a track by The Durutti Column, the hyper cool Manchester guitar project from the early 80’s which telegraphed deep connoisseurship.

Dior Men S/S 2026 set reminiscent of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin