​Dior: Jonathan Anderson debuts with a novel new look

In a season of debuts, the biggest so far was at Dior on Wednesday, where Jonathan Anderson debuted in women’s wear spectacularly with a novel new vision of the house’s famed New Look.

Or new looks rather, as Anderson riffed on many of Monsieur Dior’s earliest creations, and over a dozen Bar jackets, though very much on his own terms.

The show space set—created by film director Luca Guadagnino, for whom Anderson dressed the lead actors in his tennis movie “Challengers”—was centered around an inverted pyramid. Like previous Dior shows, the show tent was built on top of the largest fountain inside the Tuileries.

Kicking off the action not with clothes, but with a punchy agit-prop video shot by one of Anderson’s heroes, documentarist Adam Curtis, whose noted documentary “Hypernormalisation” ‘really changed my life. It’s about how society got to where we are today,’ explained Anderson in a pre-show morning preview.

The video proved to be excellent—a Zoo TV-worthy mash-up of Dior’s historic highlights: Monsieur Dior looking stern; Gianfranco Ferré at a fitting; John Galliano in a space suit; and a brilliant compendium of great shows with clips from classic movies where Dior dressed stars like Marlene Dietrich. It produced a huge roar of applause.

Anderson then opened with a striking new dress, made of two lengths of silk tied into two large knots, sculpted over an interior structure—setting the scene for a highly experimental show.

He showed multiple versions of the Bar jacket: elongated as in the original, though paired with his Dior menswear multi-pleat cargo shorts; or undulating and ruffled at the back so it stuck out; or cut large into a bulky coat. Think hybrid Bar jacket. Or what Jonathan termed “expanding the proposition into a different kind of universe.”

The Northern Irish-born designer also played with lots of jersey or cashmere knits, combining some with bunches of fabric hydrangeas—an abstract version of which had already been seen at the Toronto Film Festival on Anya Taylor-Joy, who sat front row. He also lifted a few ideas from his menswear debut with some superb fracks: Edwardian-style shirts and cargo shorts. His fabrics were often blends of classic Dior, like silk mohair, with JW’s traditional cotton twill.

In a heavy-duty front row, LVMH patron and Dior owner Bernard Arnault sat chatting happily with Brigitte Macron on his left and Charlize Theron on his right. However, the biggest photo pop was Johnny Depp in a Dior gray suit and a gangster hat.

There were so many designers present that it felt like Jonathan had opened a Montessori school for mature students: Rick Owens, Glenn Martens, Stefano Pilati, Chitose Abe, Nicolas Di Felice, Christian Louboutin, Camille Miceli, Alessandro Michele, Kris Van Assche, and Simone Bellotti.

Like in his Dior menswear debut in June, he played a lot with the neckline, discovering an early ’60s Saint Laurent high lace collar—a radical look and a collar that cascaded down the back to the floor.

Considering the Curtis video, Anderson explained: “In a weird way… it was what my brain was like for the last two months. You know, Dior is big. The brand is big, and ultimately, the imagination of the brand in the public eye is big. There are films about Dior, there are documentaries about it, and there are books on it. And I think there is this weight. In a weird way, it is sometimes nearly like there is a fantasy in it that is cinematic. If you look at how Dior worked with Hitchcock and Marlene Dietrich, there’s this like campness.”

Lovers of fine hats will also adore this show—taking the Bar hat and turning it on itself, or cutting others into tricorns like aircraft wings, or revamping nun’s cornets. He also scored with a new triangular bag tied with a little knot that is named Cigale.

Quite frankly, one key reason Anderson got the job at Dior was his remarkable success at Loewe, LVMH’s leading Spanish label, with the Puzzle bag—the best-selling bag in Harrods by all accounts. He will be expected to produce a hit leather bag at Dior, something the brand has not really delivered since launching the Lady D and Saddle some two decades ago.

In his pre-show preview for Italian and Irish editors, Anderson was disarmingly honest. Asked what his biggest challenge was on entering Dior, he responded: “I am not a couture designer.”

Pleading for patience to develop his vision before boards featuring all 75 looks, Anderson added: “There’s this thing about dressing up, by the kind who revere fashion. So, I think over the next while we will play with this tension. And try to work out where Dior can go, because it cannot happen tomorrow or today. It’s not going to happen today. And it’s going to take time to kind of work out where the new type of tension within it is.”

That tension also exists in Curtis’ most famous documentary “Hypernormalisation.” A skillful montage of newsreel footage of recent history and conspiracy theories, it is certainly thought-provoking. It suggests that nothing ever changes politically anymore, as a cabal of politicians, rich corporate owners, and technological utopians now control the world via antidepressant drugs and social media—constructing a “fake world” to control global citizens.

A somewhat odd choice for a fashion movie, given it’s an industry that is meant to be all about change. And given that Anderson’s patron is Europe’s richest man.

All told, after a week in Milan where four debutant designers at major houses mainly played quite safe, it was impressive to witness how many risks Anderson was prepared to take at Dior. He does not lack guts. Was it a huge hit? Perhaps not, but it is a fascinating work in progress.