The invitation for Jonathan Anderson’s latest Dior show was a pair of ‘wenwan’ walnuts, encased in a grey box and embedded in velvet. The act of ‘wénwán’ – dating back to ancient China’s Han dynasty – is to rub the two walnuts together in circles in your hands for meditation or distraction, like worry stones or prayer beads. Do it for long enough, and they become smooth and polished, turning a deep plum red and ‘jade-like’ in texture (the process can take up to 50 years, which made the patinated wénwán walnuts highly covetable).
There is a clear metaphorical weight to Anderson’s choice of invitation – the idea that creating something beautiful takes time and patience. This not only applies to Dior as a house – after all, haute couture requires the ultimate acts of endurance, with gowns taking up to 100 hours to hand-stitch – but also perhaps to Anderson’s position as creative director. As tenures become increasingly short (look to Dario Vitale, who only lasted a single season at Versace, despite a critically lauded debut) and social media’s firestorm of opinion, that ‘some things take time’ felt like a necessary statement. ‘Coming across wénwán walnuts reminded me how we can find knowledge and preciousness in nature,’ he said.
Like last season, the show was staged in Paris’ historic Tuileries Gardens in a contemporary pagoda surrounding Le Bassin Octogonal, one of the park’s octagonal fountains. Last season, it was dotted with lily pads; this season, a more wistful mood was conjured with a cluster of camphor trees and dry ice, which gave the effect of fog hovering over a lake at dawn (the trees will be replanted in the gardens after the show). ‘Long before a tree spreads its branches to the sky, the nut holds the knowledge of its form,’ read the collection notes, a calligram of a walnut shell.
Indeed, this was a collection which saw Anderson finding the form of his Dior woman – a clear evolution of last season’s romantic silhouette (the millefeuilles of frills and ruffles returned here), and a counterpart to the Dior man he showed in June of this year (their shared wardrobe includes a metallic silver jean). Signatures are beginning to be forged, like his shrunken bar jacket (this time, it recalled a barn jacket with its contrasting collar); a use of plissé jacquard to create a more fluid tailoring line (plissé was used in his S/S 2026 couture collection, shown in June); alongside references to nature, whether in elongated petal-like earrings or painterly floral prints (nature was a perennial influence on house founder Christian Dior, who often returned to the flower in his collections).
Through it all, an eclectic, whimsical air that feels particularly Andersonian: a woven organza suit was left open to reveal a bra top beneath, and worn with asymmetric earrings and a silver handbag slung over the shoulder, while another look combined a pyjama shirt and delicate layered skirt, worn with Dior-chain branded heels – as if his protagonist for the season had dressed in haste. Elsewhere, there were floating organza bows; bouclé tweed left unfurling at its edges; metal evening bags shaped like swans; and shrunken cardigans in pastel-coloured cable knits, adorned with crystals.
Indeed, Anderson said that he wanted the collection to be one of ‘soft focus’, an apparition emerging from the fog. Part of this was down to the lightness of the garments: ‘What is tailoring is imagined as flou?’ was one question he asked himself, reimagining pinstripe and Prince of Wales check blazers in an organza-like fabric designed to appear as tailoring wool (flou is the term in haute couture to describe dresses made from fluid, lightweight fabrics, in opposition to the rigour and structure of tailoring). ‘Something that, as it walks, leaves a kind of residue behind,’ he described of the ethereal looks.
It is a vision of romantic femininity that is paying off for Anderson: the Christian Dior Group recorded revenue of €38.6 billion in the first half of 2026, with a growth of 3 per cent in the second quarter and the fashion and leather goods arm returning to revenue growth after a previous decline. On top of that, a starry collaboration with A24, launched during New York Fashion Week, is a reminder of Anderson’s unique knack for mining the cultural zeitgeist (he did so adeptly at Loewe, and looks to continue doing so at Dior).
But Anderson is not done experimenting yet: as he hones his vision for Dior, don’t expect him to settle into a groove (like the wénwán walnut, he is envisioning his transformation of the house in decades, not months). As he said after his first couture show in January, the role of a designer at a major house is to challenge expectation. ‘I think the idea of designing things is to make people want something they didn’t want. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt at Dior, it’s just about putting ideas out [there].’ Today, he reiterated this: ‘If you’ve already arrived, there’s nowhere to go.’
Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from Paris Fashion Week S/S 2027.