Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut: ‘bringing joy to the art of dressing’

This afternoon in Paris, in a specially constructed showspace in the grounds of Hôtel des Invalides, Jonathan Anderson revealed his first collection for Dior – the culmination of a week of carefully calibrated teasing via Instagram, from Andy Warhol’s photographs of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Lee Radziwill overlaid with the Dior logo, to a video of the French footballer Kylian Mbappé doing up a striped tie. In between: a frog-shaped pin cushion, handbags with the title pages of Dracula and Les Liaisons dangereuses, and a show invitation comprising a porcelain plate with three eggs on top (it was a recreation of one of Anderson’s more unexpected discoveries in the Dior archive).

The curiosity and speculation such disparate fragments caused was a testament to Anderson’s unique position in fashion – that of both designer of clothing and cultural agitator, a role he honed at Loewe as well as at his eponymous label JW Anderson (he exited the former as creative director earlier this year; the latter will continue in a new, rebooted format launching this July during haute couture week in Paris). Since 2008, when JW Anderson was founded, the Ireland-born designer has fostered deep-rooted links with the worlds of art, design, celebrity and film – including designing costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Queer – and is a lover of both pop and high culture, often fusing the two at once.

Dior proves a new challenge, though. Unlike Loewe, which he transformed from a sleepy, somewhat forgotten house in the LVMH roster, Dior is a crown jewel of Parisian fashion – a venerable, historic institution that bears the name of arguably the most influential couturier of the 20th century, Christian Dior (it is also a name that extends far beyond the industry – on Instagram alone, Dior has over 46 million followers). His appointment is also the first time a single person has designed menswear, womenswear and haute couture, meaning the production of at least ten collections per year (he took over the roles of Kim Jones and Maria Grazia Chiuri). It has also been no secret that amid a luxury sales slowdown, Dior hopes that Anderson is able to rev up interest and tap into new markets.

‘He’s very in tune with his generation. He’s very connected, especially with young people. He speaks to a wide audience,’ Delphine Arnault – Dior’s CEO and a figure instrumental in his appointment – said in a recent interview with Business of Fashion.

The show itself, attended by Rihanna, A$AP Rocky and Daniel Craig – a former Loewe campaign star – took place amid a set reminiscent of the ‘velvet-lined interiors’ and parquet-lined floor of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie museum. It was hung with two paintings by 18th-century French painter Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, which Anderson described as ‘modest yet beautiful’. The first depicted a bunch of flowers in a Delft vase, the other a bowl of ripe red strawberries. They set the stage for an exploration of affluence and grandeur, and a reconfiguration of those codes – the vaunted house of Dior, through the eyes of Anderson. ‘At a time when art was often concerned with excess and spectacle, Chardin revered the everyday, trading grandeur for sincerity and empathy,’ read the collection notes.

Signals of upper-class dress codes ran through the collection, presented dishevelled and skewiff – from Donegal tweeds and cable-knit sweaters to British regimental neckties, schoolboy jumpers and military jackets, as well as riffs on tailcoats and the Bar Jacket, Christian Dior’s most enduring creation (Anderson’s version on the nipped-waist blazer came with satin lapels and a two-button fastening). A supersized take on the cargo pant, meanwhile – with ruffled layers of fabric drawn from an archival women’s gown – recalled Anderson’s more avant-garde approach, while capes and elongated evening scarves added a loucheness to the silhouette.

Smatterings of surface embellishment and pattern ran throughout, which Anderson said had a ‘Rococo’ feel – a period, he added, with which Christian Dior was particularly fascinated. Further book bags, similar to those revealed prior to the show, included Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Charles Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal. There was lightness to the display – largely less experimental than his work at Loewe, though still distinctly Andersonian in its assemblage of idiosyncratic elements, and rich cultural references.

Ultimately, Anderson said he wanted to capture the joy of dressing up – an experience likely spawned by his own journey into the Dior archive, a Wunderkammer for any designer. ‘A breathless, almost liberating joy’ is how Anderson described the paintings of Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin. Here, with an astute debut that culminated in a standing ovation, Anderson captured a similar rush.

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