PARIS (AP) – Previous shows at Paris Fashion Week have not portrayed such a passionate crash of celebrities, designers and media.
All eyes were on Northern Ireland’s designer Jonathan Anderson, who had already transformed Loue into a global powerhouse of wit and crafts when he unveiled his first Dior women’s clothing collection on Wednesday.
Around him, Jenna Ortega glowed before he saw Johnny Depp, Rosalia, Zisu, Jennifer Lawrence, Rosamund Pike, Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor Joy, Willow Smith, Mikey Madison, Jenna Ortega and Celebrity Wattsy Set Save Wadge.
The weight of history was everywhere. Dior was a fashion house that remodeled Paris as the world’s fashion capital in 1947, when Christian Dior unveiled its “new look.” Its bar jacket and wasp silhouettes made headlines across the world still emerging from the war. Since then, all Dior designers have been judged by how they wrestled with their legacy, from Yves St. Laurent to John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Graziaciuli.
The 41-year-old Anderson is the first in Dior’s history to oversee both male and female lines, and is a responsibility of a huge cultural and commercial interest.
I’m looking at Anderson
Staging made that moment into drama. A huge inverted pyramid, reflecting the Louvre, approached the runway as a montage of Dior’s image flickered at ferocious speeds, and was a horror-like sprice of icons and ghosts. Message: The weight of heritage, fractures, unstable.
What followed was not a revolution, but a series of research gestures. Anderson wasn’t the one who exploded the house code. At Loewe, and again in his Dior Men’s debut in June, his way was to bend and reconstruct. That instinct was carried here. The silhouette is leaning forward and almost rebelliously loose. The admiral visor tightened its forehead. The black lace flares up like a bow or bat from behind. Most striking was the recurring “double balloon” shape hidden under the skirt, producing a strange, bouncing, Versailles-like silhouette.
The icon has been revisited, but there is no “new look” moment
The bar jacket – a staple of Dior’s innovative new look – was rethinked in off-kilter, whose peplum was rolled up towards the bust, and the hourglass was biased towards the surreal thing. In the body, it sometimes seemed inappropriate, as if the poem of ideas fought against proportions. This is what Dior called “boxing and the history of boxing.” This is an archive capture of Anderson’s push-pull.
As a result, his menswear was echoed. As one critic said, it’s not a “new look” with Capital N, but a constellation of eclectic ideas. Critics who wanted the single-defined shock (the Sliman-style bolts of manifestos like Clarity and Simons) remain overwhelmed. Instead, Anderson’s Dior unfolded like his opening montage: fragmented and undeliberately unresolved – tracing the framing of the house’s collection as “harmony and tension.”
There was an undeniable victory. The quality fabrics, finishes and precise crafts of the clothing enhance Dior’s Atelier power. Historical references felt alive, not preservatives. Additionally, the separation included commercially available oxygen, a balloon skirt and accessories with bites.
However, the drawbacks remained. The Hitchcock threat in the opening film was never exactly matched on the runway. Celebrity crashes risked obscuring the message. And the lack of one commander silhouette means that Anderson’s Dior remains for now.
change
Still, the size of this debut cannot be overstated. Anderson is part of his first rare season. Matieu Blasey’s first Chanel collection will arrive next week, with Pierpaolo Picciri making his debut at Balenciaga on October 4th. Together they form a re-shuffle rewriting the gorgeous map.
Wednesday had fewer cor crowns than the prologue: a modest tone, fundamentally detailed, the show marked the beginning of many possible passes.
