Creative Director Jonathan Anderson’s merging of couture tradition and youthfulness made for an impactful sophomore menswear offering.
The worlds of couture and youth culture might, at first, seem poles apart. But not for Jonathan Anderson. For his sophomore Dior collection, he imagined a troop of youngsters roaming the city, stumbling listlessly along Avenue Montaigne, before encountering a plaque reading Paul Poiret, the esteemed early 20th-century couturier. This encounter turbocharges those youths into discovering a new sense of style.
What does that look like? Shimmering vests in opulent purples and greens, worn with skinny jeans and “D” toe snakeskin boots, with shoulder bags swinging from the body. Some wore yellow wigs. Because Anderson’s punkish aristos are taking the codes of couture – of balanced design, quality and rhythm — and doing it in their own way, much like Poiret himself who led the charge in freeing women from corsets. They’re pairing houndstooth Dior Bar jackets with slouchy denim cargos, and they’re wearing them to the ground. This could be the ragtag uniform of new-wave indie aristos, frequenting London clubs on a weeknight. Their mates are in the band, they smoke expensive cigarettes, and when they post on Instagram (which they rarely do), they’re in the toilet, posing for black and white pictures.
Anderson has mastered the art of turning the everyday into something marvellous, mixing whimsy with wearability. It’s a sensibility we saw him carve out during his 11-year run at LOEWE, and now he’s doing it at Dior. Here, polo shirts — ultra-wearable menswear stalwarts — were turned into ceremonial party gear, with shimmering epaulettes, and vibrant patterned trousers. Daily driver parka jackets arrived in bulbous, couture gown-adjacent shapes, cocooning its wearer, perhaps on the way home after a heavy one, or maybe the next morning. Capes morphed with tailcoat suits, and exaggerated fur cuffs joined in, destined for late-night shenanigans in a 16th arrondissement mansion, or remote country escape.
Trousers and jeans were notably slimmer, akin to those of Hedi Slimane, who helmed Dior Homme from 2000-2007 with a defining razor-sharp skinny silhouette. But Anderson still made time for relaxed suiting, too.
Since taking the helm at Dior last year, Anderson has unpacked and rethought what the aristocracy might wear today. The next-in-line kids live a little looser. In his debut, Christian Dior’s delft dress was transformed into supersized cargo shorts, requiring no less than seven metres of fabric. In the designer’s Pre-Fall 2026 collection, these shorts were stamped with a coat of arms, in a more direct wink to aristocracy. Then there was the Napoleonic denim tailcoat that newly announced House ambassador LaKeith Stanfield wore to the Fashion Awards in December, nodding to French military uniforms. But there’s also deeply normal stuff (at least at first glance) like straight-fitting jeans and mid-top Roadie sneakers, reflective of the contemporary aristo garb, one where heritage and streetwear nods can both sit at the table.
This Autumn/Winter 2026 collection showed the charisma in uncoordinated dressing, where clothing enters your wardrobe at different stages, spotlighting the beauty in imperfection. Jonathan Anderson’s latest offering felt fresh, surprising, and powerful, where the bullishness of youth and refinement of tradition combined. So yeah, the kids are alright and they’re wearing Dior.
