In France there is the 60’s cinema movement called La Nouvelle Vague and sticking with that term it’s safe to say that Jonathan Anderson ushered in a new era in fashion with his Christian Dior women’s show. After mostly tepid debuts in Italy this was the wave, the industry was waiting for that is washing clean the slate for all of fashion. He shaved off a good 20 years of age from the image and rejuvenated Dior with a collection that showed his prowess in construction, archive research, commercial pieces and laid bare his British roots with all his boarding school capes. He started his show with a clever collage documentary that paid respect to all prior Dior designers and asked in its opening caption: “Do you dare enter the house of Dior?”. Anderson left literally nothing to chance when he even double checked the front row seating hours prior to the show. From his first look it was clear that statement dressing does not need to be about gowns and sequins but can be as simple as a mini plisse dress on hoops (a Galliano specialty who used to get the wire from the hardware store). A simple but powerful gesture for such a closely watched debut. He cleverly combined ideas from the men’s wear like the Delft dress multi-layer cargo short to provide a red thread to combine the universes while here they became miniskirts. After all he is the first designer to do men’s and women’s at Dior. Same thing for the multiple denim offerings here in short skirts and some truly breathtaking and modern evening dresses based on tight shells and cascading sequin curtains to the floor below the waist showing off the couture ateliers of the house. It all looked fresh, fun, and young and miles away from the heavy hand celeb looks at the Venice film festivals.

The high concept?

Bringing his high concept becoming fashion approach from Loewe to Dior he styled a lot of his models with his version of Buccaneer hats which looked super cool and added drama to the silhouette. Even better, Delphine Arnault sat next to Johnny Depp, the ultimate pirate hat face. Could Anderson go as far as already dressing the face of the world’s best-selling fragrance Sauvage? Yes.

…made by Stephen Jones’ millinery.

The dress work?

Whether it was the bias-cut dresses (another nod to his fellow Briton) with bows on top and bottom or lace frocks with butterfly wings suggesting fluttery structures to float over the runway which had an excellent electronic soundtrack by Frédéric Sanchez the important category dressmaking was aced.

Lightweight lacey butterfly constructions