Jonathan Anderson has hit the hard reset button on the house of Dior. After months of anticipation, the fashion designer has finally presented his first collection for the French luxury brand—and it is all anyone can talk about at Paris Men’s Fashion Week.
The Dior Spring/Summer 2026 men’s show was presented at the Hôtel National des Invalides in Paris, with the audience crammed closely to the runway. “This is how people saw couture in the original Dior salon, really close up,” Anderson told Vogue.
What came down that runway was Anderson’s “play on history and affluence”, as the collection’s show notes read. Indeed, Anderson brought back plenty of historical garments for fashion history enthusiasts and Pride and Prejudice fans to delight in, including the frock coat (a typical daywear style for men in 18th-century France and England, which extends into a knee-length skirt) and the tailcoat (a more formal style with the front of the coat notably cut away, leaving a longer section at the back). Anderson also offered military-inspired jackets and replicas of archival waistcoats, which were jazzed up by 18th-century French floral embroidery, or the use of silk moiré—that lustrous fabric, originating from 19th-century Lyon, that Christian Dior was so fond of.
Such pieces were anachronistically styled with preppy cable-knit sweaters and slouchy blue jeans. Anderson was inspired by “youthful spontaneity”, and the idea of boys discovering those historic garb “in a trunk and just pulling them on”. This fantasy is further explored in a series of films and photographs starring The White Lotus’s Sam Nivola, shot around the gardens of the Hameau de la Reine (or Queen’s Hamlet), a rustic retreat built for Marie Antoinette within the Palace of Versailles. Those images explain the collection’s whimsical jewellery: necklaces and rings adorned with enamelled sunflowers and four-leaf clovers and ladybugs.
The Dior collection’s irreverent remixing of style codes is something that will be familiar to fans of Anderson, who spent a decade reinvigorating the Spanish brand Loewe alongside running his namesake fashion label. What is new is Anderson’s incorporation of Dior-isms. The most unique pieces on the runway were the chino cargo shorts, which were as wide as a pannier and flanked by looped layers. These voluminous, Comme des Garçons-esque designs were actually a nod to Christian Dior’s Delft dress, from the maison’s Fall/Winter 1948 haute couture collection, which featured layered, draped panels. Another queer style of cargo shorts that came down the runway featured a tent-like construction, which alluded to the silhouette of Monsieur Dior’s 1952 silk moiré dress, La Cigale, famous for its protruding hips.
For the grown-up Dior man, who may not readily wear those shorts, Anderson also offered his take on the Dior Bar Jacket, an icon of the French fashion house. His version was cut from glittering Irish Donegal tweed (borrowed from Anderson’s Irish heritage), with contrasting lapels. Those Bar Jackets were styled with Regency-style cravats tied with a bow, another example of Anderson’s play on history and affluence. Anderson also poked at the formality of ties, which were worn loosely around the collar or even on its reverse side, atop striped and checkered dress shirts that were embroidered with the new Dior logo. Those buttoned shirts were paired with relaxed cotton trousers or jeans.
This was the look that resonated with many of the Western celebrities who attended Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut, including ASAP Rocky (who was matched by his pregnant partner, Rihanna), Dior ambassador Robert Pattinson, Drew Starkey, Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor and filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. Meanwhile, the Asian stars, including Seventeen’s Kim Mingyu, Apo Nattawin, Mile Phakphum and members of the K-pop boyband TXT, opted for the sporty and preppy pieces from the collection, including polo shirts, half-zip pullovers, and high-top sneakers inspired by boxing shoes, featuring wide, logo-embossed tongues.
Anderson told Vogue that Dior, being a multibillion-dollar brand, “has to mean something to everyone”. The front row of his first Dior show demonstrated how his new vision for the brand could appeal to men (and Rihanna), while also teasing what it looks like for women. Many of the guests were dressed in Anderson’s first Dior designs for women: Sabrina Carpenter wore a wool grey Bar Jacket with a matching pleated skirt, Mia Goth donned a pleated silk dress in light grey and blue, and Ethel Cain arrived in an oversized striped sweater and a floaty white skirt embellished with floral appliques.
The full picture of Anderson’s Dior will come into view in September, when the designer presents his first women’s ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week. On the moodboard: a Polaroid of Lee Radziwill, the glamorous sister of Jackie Kennedy, photographed by Andy Warhol.
Earlier this week, Anderson shared both that photo and one of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as his inspirations for his new Dior. “As I started out on this journey, I kept returning to these photographs of Basquiat and Radziwill who are both, for me, the epitome of style,” he said. The Radziwill-ness of his Dior is yet to be seen, but we’ll give him time.
The Best Looks Of Dior Spring/Summer 2026 Men’s Show By Jonathan Anderson
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