The China Mail - Jonathan Anderson to bring new twist to Dior women with Paris debut

The show, held in the Tuileries Garden in central Paris at 2:30 pm (1230 GMT), is one of the most highly anticipated highlights of the Spring-Summer 2026 Fashion Week, alongside Matthieu Blazy's debut at Chanel.

At 41, Anderson is already one of the industry's leading lights, beloved by celebrities and credited with turning the LVMH-owned Spanish label Loewe into a highly profitable and trend-setting house.

He's designed major stage outfits for Beyoncé and Rihanna and provided the costumes for "Challengers" and "Queer," two films by Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Appointed in June to replace Maria Grazia Chiuri, just weeks after joining Dior Homme, he has become the first designer since Christian Dior himself to oversee the house's three lines, including haute couture.

"The essential challenge today, with a single head leading the artistic direction of the house, is how to connect these fields," Serge Carreira, affiliate professor at Sciences Po Paris and luxury industry expert, explained to AFP.

"What will be interesting is to see how Anderson manages to find both different expressions but also unity," he added.

For his first menswear collection, Jonathan Anderson drew on gothic 19th-century inspiration, with capes, tailcoats and tweeds, waistcoats and Victorian high collars and cravats.

In front of a star-packed crowd including Rihanna, Robert Pattinson and Roger Federer, it opened with a male take on one of Christian Dior's most iconic dresses, La Cigale from 1952.

"Some of my heroes, the greatest designers in history, have done Dior, and I don't want to be chopping it all down," he told reporters at the time.

Rather he wanted to "decode and recode Dior without discarding all the great designers" who had worked for the label.

"My idea is that we need to decipher and re-program Dior (...) Dior is a house capable of reinventing itself," he added.

He has also introduced new faces of the brand: after French footballer Kylian Mbappe for menswear, actresses Mikey Madison, Greta Lee, and Mia Goth represent the women's line.

What should we expect for his first women's wardrobe?

"It is likely that there will be a significant aesthetic shift compared to Maria Grazia Chiuri," predicts Elvire von Bardeleben, head of the fashion section at Le Monde newspaper in France.

Grazia Chiuri, who held the position for nearly 10 years, established a popular but relatively classic, practical wardrobe.

"I think Anderson's intention is to bring an edginess that was absent in her work," predicted von Bardeleben.

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