The fashion world sat at full attention for Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut during the men’s Spring 2026 shows in Paris. Even though men’s fashion week is traditionally a calmer, less starry affair than its womenswear counterpart, you wouldn’t have known it outside the Hôtel des Invalides, where Luca Guadagnino was filming Josh O’Connor, Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth, Drew Starkey, Tomorrow x Together, Mike Faist, Sabrina Carpenter, and finally ASAP Rocky and Rihanna entering. Even miles from the show there was a raucous scene: Ly.as had staged a viewing party for everyone not invited to the show at Le Saint Denis, with free drinks sponsored by Meta. (At just 607 seats, per an insider, many were left out of the Dior tent—myself included.) The viewing party was so crowded that most couldn’t even see the television screen broadcasting the show.
With ears and eyes perked up, it was time for Anderson to set a new agenda. Why shouldn’t he? In the 15 years or so years he’s been designing, he has consistently pushed fashion forward on the runway and off. His idiosyncratic designs at JW Anderson and Loewe mixed a smart cerebrality with punchy colors and collaborations, and off the catwalk he effectively transformed luxury marketing into something kitschy and ironic, with goofball TikToks and a cast of inspiring friends from Justin Vivian Bond to Zendaya.
At Dior, Anderson kept that momentum going. The first look, a Donegal tweed—he’s Irish!—was worn over ivory cargo shorts—he loves prep!—cut with 15 meters of additional fabric to pleat over hips like Dior’s 1948 Delft dress—he respects history! There was historical garb in 18th-century frock coats remade stitch-for-stitch, and smart contemporary clothes like simple cotton button downs with rep stripe tied tucked in or worn inside out. Small ladybugs and florals nodded to Dior’s love of gardening, while skate sneakers and Dior Homme Hedi Slimane-era jeans nodded to Jonathan’s own teenage obsessions. The artist Sheila Hicks customized bags with yards of fringe.
I watched the show with a group of designer friends in their showroom. The first shrieks came for Ethel Cain. But as the show progressed, we discovered many things to love, from the blanket capes to those Contessa of Calabasas cargo shorts. (Minutes later, my fashion group chat was shopping cargos from eBay, Etsy, and even Free People.)
“It looks like Uniqlo,” was a prevalent comment in the i-D Instagram. Maybe that’s the point? (Although it’s hard to say that a reportedly $200,000 frock coat with real gold embellishment “looks like Uniqlo”—I don’t know a single Uniqlo store that offers that.) What Anderson is doing with Dior isn’t the freaky, wear-it-on-my-sleeve cerebral eclecticism that he did at Loewe, where dresses looked like cars and infanta panniers turned ingenue actresses into walking homages to the 17th century. It’s a higher pursuit: To dress softly and carry a big mind. The secrets of Dior are within.
This, of course, infuriates people with small minds who want flash, panache, and obviously covetable knick-knacks that can signal wealth. Funnily enough, the only carry-over from Dior prior—the Book Tote, now emblazoned with legendary book covers—also enraged people who thought it basic and obvious. (A fundamental truth of 2025: Can’t win in the comments.)
But the question at hand: Can a brand at Dior’s scale be smart? Can it reference the Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin flowers in the Louvre, the Dior Bar jacket, and In Cold Blood? Can it invoke, as another Irish designer pointed out, the uniforms and prepster style Clongowes Wood College in Kildare? Can it be about the painful yearning and gawky sexuality of Bonjour Tristesse? Or the immigrant fables of Dracula? Can Jonathan Anderson’s magpie mind make fashion customers smarter? Or more stylish?
“It’s looking at how we used to dress, how we can dress, and the idea of style,” Anderson told GQ’s Samuel Hine for his “Show Notes” newsletter. The gang of Dior boys weren’t meant to symbolize one monolithic aesthetic shift, but rather a person at different stages of a life well lived. Someone intellectual enough to pluck from youth and history, from subculture and pop culture, and someone confident enough to not be swayed by the court of public opinion. A true iconoclast. But can style really be sold? And sold at such a monumental scale?
I sought answers at the re-see. The press appointments were held at the same time as the clients’ appointments, and you could see women wandering in MariaGrazia Chiuri’s circle skirts and men in all-over logo Kim Jones pajama silks. Do they get it? Do they want to? I paused at my favorite look: a denim jacket with shredded silk lining over a cotton shirt. A man with billionaire face stopped beside me. “It’s gorgeous, don’t you think?” I asked him. “Sure,” he demurred, “but I don’t think I can wear feathers.” “It’s silk!” I cheered, turning out the jacket so he could see its lining better. “Hmm” he said, and I left him there to think about if he could wear rep stripe ties—or if he, just like me, was sad he didn’t get an invite to the event of “his” season (his being the Bezos wedding).
In the days after the show, the fashion audience quietly divided in opinion, but I remained steadfast in my Andersonia. Fashion has been yearning for a shift, for a new path. The gimmicks and viral moments that defined the 2010s cannot be sustained, and now with a global recession and lower luxury spending in the retail sector, luxury has to be less about what matters on social media and more what signifies wealth in 2025. That, is a much harder question to answer. Is it safety, for who is safe amidst global warfare? Is it health? Is it serenity, as so many other collections suggested, designing beachy spa clothes for a lifestyle away from the real world, played out through resorts, and rolled-up shorts and cashmere polos?
Anderson thinks it’s smarts and style. Being the eccentric millionairess in the countryside, a house stuffed with ceramics and Edwardian slip dresses. The first time I ever went to England was to see Jonathan in Brighton. He had designed a collection with Uniqlo that was all about the Bloomsbury group. A guide took me and photographer Thurstan Redding on a private tour of Charleston House, and we walked silently and solemnly around the stuff of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell with our Uniqlo shirts, taking pictures of them hanging over chairs and with paintings. Back then, I asked: “Can wardrobe basics be radical?” I’m still asking. A rich life only happens within—but maybe these clothes can help get you there.