Dior’s menswear show in Paris arrived with a pared-back presentation and a confident statement of neon-yellow wigs, signaling a shift under new creative direction. The show, presented in an annex of the Rodin Museum, was led by Jonathan Anderson, Dior’s creative director. VIPs in the close-packed room included Robert Pattinson, Lewis Hamilton and SZA.
In the Rodin Museum annex, Anderson worked from a stripped-down setting, with the décor pared down to near-nothing and lined with curtain fabric. The look included neon-yellow wigs on the runway, described as reading like a flag of authority planted in the Paris setting.
The change landed with what an attendee in the front row described as conviction. “Dior is back. It’s a good day for fashion,” one person in the front row said, in the moment the show’s clothes were presented as carrying the argument.
Anderson’s menswear was described as tightening the story and sharpening silhouettes after earlier runway “wobbles” from their new designer. The gender-bending element was also described as grounded rather than weightless, anchored in masculine boots and small-heeled lace-ups.
The clearest emphasis in the show was on outerwear, where coats were described as the collection’s backbone in cut and stance. The designer was said to riff on Dior’s Bar jacket and the New Look line, with a subtle nod described through hints of structure and a faint curve at the hip.
Dior is one of LVMH’s flagship houses, with the show presented against a backdrop of pressured luxury demand. In the wider sector, AP reported that rival luxury group Kering has been battling a prolonged slump at Gucci, with results showing steep sales declines that weighed on the group, and that Kering’s biggest runway names were absent from the official menswear and couture schedules in Paris this week.
After Maria Grazia Chiuri’s long run at Dior ended last year with mixed critical notices in some quarters, the company placed a large wager on Anderson, who was described as the first designer in Dior’s modern history to oversee women’s ready-to-wear, haute couture and menswear under a single creative hand.
The collection’s styling was described through a set of contrasts: high-low, old-new, and contradictions made coherent. Dior’s house notes cast the clothes’ characters as modern-day flâneurs, anchored in the brand’s references to Paul Poiret, and presented the collision as construction rather than mood—pairing Dior formality with denim and parkas and pairing tailoring with technical outerwear.
On the runway, tailoring was described as slender and precise, including elongated jackets, shrunken blazers, tailcoats, cropped Bar jackets and lean trousers. Outerwear was described as fusing pragmatic and dramatic elements, with bombers flowing into brocade capes, balloon-back field jackets and cocooning coats.
Even as the palette was described as somber, the presentation used punctuation in the form of a shock of yellow hair and glittering glam-rock epaulettes. Accessories were described as reinforcing the strategy, with lace-ups with small heels and loafers keeping the body planted—blur the masculine-feminine line, while preventing the clothes from drifting.
The wigs were described as doing the talking, while the clothes themselves, in the reporting, did not need to shout to make their point.