Jonathan Anderson doesn’t climb mountains halfway. Having just scaled the formidable peak of his first men’s and women’s collections for Dior, the Northern Irish designer wasted no time in pushing himself — and the house — further into uncharted territory. Less than a week before unveiling his debut haute couture for Dior, Anderson presented his second men’s collection, and rather than consolidating, he chose exhilaration. Call it the fashion equivalent of extreme mountaineering.
If his inaugural show last June leaned into Dior’s own formidable archive, this time Anderson deliberately stepped away from familiar ground. Instead, he looked to the man who first made Avenue Montaigne a fashion destination: Paul Poiret. A radical in his time, Poiret was a master of drape, color, and theatrical liberation — a couturier who dismantled structure when others clung to it.
Outside Dior’s historic headquarters, a mosaic plaque embedded in the pavement pays tribute to Poiret. It’s a quiet marker for a loud legacy — and a fitting symbol of what fascinated Anderson. The parallels between the two designers are striking: both instinctive, experimental, and unafraid of challenging convention. The paradox, of course, is that neither Poiret nor Christian Dior ever designed menswear.
That contradiction is exactly what ignited Anderson’s imagination.
“I kind of like this idea of these two out-of-character landscapes meeting,” he explained ahead of the show. “Dior put the structure in, Poiret took it out.”
The collection’s spark came from a single garment: a purple Poiret dress Anderson acquired from a vintage dealer. Its spirit opened the show through a trio of sequined vests worn with jeans — a disarming, irreverent gesture that set the psychedelic tone. From there, the collection unfolded in vivid, unexpected ways.
Jacquard trousers clashed electric color combinations. Cocooning jackets enveloped the body. Polo shirts glittered with military-style epaulets. Tailored coats were transformed with chunky shearling cuffs and draped in Art Deco brocades woven in Italy by Poiret’s original suppliers — a historical loop closed with intent. A bronze parka bloomed with sculptural 3D flowers, while tailoring itself was thrown off-balance.
Shrunken Bar jackets — in houndstooth wool and distressed denim — sprouted exaggerated hourglass curves just beneath the armpits. Tailcoats appeared in cable knit or dense shearling, blurring the boundary between formality and fantasy. Through Anderson’s lens, menswear became elastic, unstable, and thrillingly alive.
With fluorescent yellow wigs, colossal down coats, and asymmetric wrap skirts, some models appeared almost alien — a visual jolt that recalled Junya Watanabe’s more radical moments. Anderson, however, cited John Galliano, another Dior creative director who mined Poiret’s legacy with fearless theatricality.
“Dior is about fashion. It never started as a leather goods brand,” Anderson said pointedly. “It has the history of fashion in it, with geniuses like John that created moments of spectacle. I think people want theatrics.”
Theatrics, yes — but not chaos. For all its hallucinatory energy, the collection was grounded by commercially astute pieces: tweed suits with subtly slanted shoulders, loose-cut jeans, shimmering knits. Early retail feedback suggests Anderson’s balancing act is working. With his first Dior men’s pieces landing in stores on January 2, the response has been swift and positive.
“It’s doing very well. Everyone’s very happy,” he confirmed.
What emerges is a portrait of a designer unwilling to settle into formulas.
“I feel like we’re moving at speed here for quite a big machine,” Anderson reflected. “You don’t want it to be scripted. The minute something works and becomes the same every season, people get bored. You have to change quickly — otherwise, how do you make them tune in again?”
Perhaps the clearest sign of success came off the runway. Several guests arrived wearing the pleated white collars Anderson sent out as show invitations — a quiet signal that his vision is already being absorbed, worn, and echoed.
Risky? Absolutely. But Anderson seems most alive at the edge, where structure meets freedom and history collides with instinct. At Dior, he isn’t interested in predictability. He’s chasing altitude — and inviting the rest of us along for the climb.
Creative direction Jonathan Anderson
Styling Benjamin Bruno
Makeup Peter Philips
Hair Guido Palau
Casting Ashley Brokaw
Production La Mode en Images
Show coordination Holmes Production
Broadcast direction Titre Provisoire
Music Studio Frederic Sanchez
