‘Dior is drama’: Jonathan Anderson goes for the jugular at Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week has seen its fair share of headline-making moments, but this season’s Dior show was hailed as the biggest spectacle in years. The energy surrounding the event felt more like a global concert than a fashion presentation. With Oscar winners in the audience, K-pop idols electrifying fans, and a bold new designer at the helm, all eyes were fixed on what would unfold at the Tuileries gardens.

Two Academy Award winners—Mikey Madison and Charlize Theron—were in the front row, while Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, daughter of Nicole Kidman, stepped onto the catwalk. Their presence alone guaranteed attention, but the true frenzy belonged to the legion of K-pop fans who had camped out since dawn, eager to see their idols. BTS’s Jimin, a Dior global ambassador, stole screams from teenagers packed shoulder-to-shoulder across the gardens.

Even France’s political and cultural elite turned up in style. First ladies Brigitte Macron and Carla Bruni, both entangled in newsworthy narratives of their own, shared animated conversation in the front row. Meanwhile, acclaimed filmmaker Luca Guadagnino designed a stage that embodied Parisian drama: an inverted glass pyramid hanging like a mirror of the Louvre, shimmering in the heart of the city.

Backstage, Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson, 41, made his Dior debut with characteristic understatement. Dressed in jeans, a navy jumper, and trainers, he looked like any other Londoner you might spot at a Tesco self-checkout. Yet, beneath this casual appearance was one of the most talked-about creative minds in fashion, facing the pressure of transforming Dior at a time when the luxury industry faces sharp downturns.

“Well, Dior is drama,” Anderson said, almost with a shrug. And drama was exactly what he delivered.

Reinventing a house born from drama

The weight of Dior’s history is immense. In 1947, Christian Dior’s revolutionary “New Look” defined postwar optimism with cinched waists and voluminous skirts, altering the way women dressed and changing fashion forever. Dior became synonymous with both femininity and newsworthy style.

In 2025, however, the challenge was greater. The luxury market is contracting, and the industry is desperate for a revitalizing spark. Anderson knew his debut could not be subtle—it needed to be seismic. His answer was to confront the moment directly, opening the show with a short film by documentary maker Adam Curtis titled Do You Dare to Enter the House of Dior.

The five-minute montage was surreal, splicing together scenes of mid-century couture fantasy, paparazzi hysteria, horror-film snippets, and unexpected juxtapositions. Diana, Princess of Wales, in couture collided on screen with John Galliano in an absurd spacesuit. It was part fever-dream, part social critique—exactly Curtis’s style. Anderson explained his choice: “He is really good at rationalising, through visuals rather than words, how we got to this place politically and how we deal with it now.”

The question: Can intellect translate to spectacle?

Anderson has long been considered one of fashion’s intellectual heavyweights, with passions extending into ceramics, design history, and fine art. He is currently curating an exhibition on painter Gwen John, and his conversations often drift toward chairs and architecture as much as hemlines. The question on everyone’s mind was whether such a cerebral figure could produce a collection bold and theatrical enough to command Dior’s global audience.

The answer came in the opening look. Instead of revisiting Dior’s hourglass silhouettes with reverence, Anderson ripped up the New Look and rebuilt it with audacity. Skirts were cheekily cropped at the thigh, echoing where the original Bar jacket hem had once rested. Jackets opened at the waist to reveal leather or pink denim mini-skirts. Hair was unstyled, makeup minimal, signaling a Dior that felt more streetwise, more real, even wearable in East London neighborhoods like Dalston.

“Dior can be a bit sugary,” Anderson admitted. “The woman is often sort of the princess.” His debut turned that princess into someone tougher, freer, and decidedly modern.

Sweetness, surrealism, and satire

Still, Anderson didn’t abandon Dior’s heritage entirely. Pretty dresses bloomed with embroidered forget-me-nots, hydrangea ruffles, and pastel confectionary tones. Byron’s She Walks in Beauty inspired one sequence, leaning into romance. “Dior can get a bit camp,” Anderson noted, “and I don’t mind that.”

But alongside the sugary elements, he injected surrealism and satire. Shoes were cheeky, like loafers with the “O” in Dior cut out to expose the foot. Sandals burst into roses. Accessories leaned avant-garde, with sinister black bird-like hats perched on models’ heads, echoing both fairy tale and nightmare. These details recalled the witty eccentricities he became known for at Loewe.

The result was a show that danced between opposites: delicate yet subversive, glamorous yet raw, historical yet distinctly modern.

Dior, politics, and cultural escape

Curtis once said his films aim to make “pretentious shit entertaining” by blending politics with culture, and this ethos shaped the Dior show. For Anderson, Dior’s origins matter. “Dior was birthed out of war. It came out of trauma. It was France saying: ‘We’re back.’”

In his view, today’s world mirrors that uncertainty. “We are living in a bizarre moment, where we feel we have no control over politics or over politicians, so we throw ourselves into other things—like fashion and celebrity.”

That sentiment echoed throughout the event. The crowd of fans, the global celebrities, and the political figures all represented the refuge of fashion in turbulent times. Dior wasn’t just selling clothes; it was offering spectacle, fantasy, and a sense of cultural meaning.

Closing symbolism

The show’s final image carried symbolic weight. At the tip of the inverted pyramid stage sat a dove-grey Dior shoebox. It hinted at the ghosts of Dior’s past—Christian Dior himself, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano—and the responsibility Anderson now shoulders. His mission is to acknowledge those ghosts while ensuring Dior speaks powerfully to the present.

The thunderous applause that followed confirmed he had succeeded, at least for this night. In the biggest moment of Paris Fashion Week, Jonathan Anderson didn’t just debut his Dior. He jolted the entire fashion conversation, proving that in times of uncertainty, drama is not just welcome—it is necessary.

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