.second campaign
Anderson Begins Dior
Dior in Velvet, Dior in Blood, Dior in Fiction
written Amanda Mortenson
Everything begins in velvet. Heavy velvet, red velvet, velvet with history pressed into its folds like pressed flowers too soft for cataloguing.
Dior builds a room, Berlin builds a memory, the Gemäldegalerie breathes through the walls like someone reading Baudelaire aloud in an empty hallway. Paintings hang, modest and glinting, Chardin’s hands still holding onto domestic stillness while outside, the fabrics whisper and the tailoring plots a gentle upheaval. There’s no irony in this, just layers. There’s always another layer.
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
Indoor Scenography seen by Adrien Dirand
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
Jonathan Anderson stands somewhere behind it all, somewhere beneath a Donegal tweed, somewhere inside a 19th-century waistcoat with a tie that knows its own power. The trousers stretch with the weight of time. The tailcoats carry too much and choose to carry more. The past feels present, loud, unfiltered, embroidered in the way only garments speak when language steps aside. The clothes speak in codes older than sound. They tell stories with buttons and collars and hems that remember how to behave in candlelight. No one argues, the room listens.
The collection arrives in waves. Caprice stares from a corner. Delft spins, unsure whether to seduce or confess. La Cigale lingers like a perfume trapped in architecture. Every dress carries a title, every title carries a timeline, every timeline opens up a drawer of private references and aristocratic gossip. The Bar jacket shrugs over it all, comfortable in its own elegance, aware of its origins, aware of the way form fits when structure takes over and softness submits.
A Book Tote enters, unread but fully understood. First edition Baudelaire, Truman Capote, the kind of library that wears its covers proudly. A crossbody arrives, Dracula tucked inside, blood in the stitching, literature clinging to the lining like it belongs there. Sheila Hicks lends her hands to the Lady Dior, transforming it into a nest, ponytails of linen blooming in every direction. The bag turns feral, beautiful, certain. Accessories carry fiction better than plotlines ever could.
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
Charms dangle. Diorette details scatter across collars and wrists. And roses erupt from seams without warning. Embroidery blooms where thought once sat, the collection breathes deeply, exhales rococo, exhales restraint dressed as exuberance. No moment escapes embellishment, but everything wants to shimmer, and everything does. The show offered style as posture, style as attitude, style as inheritance passed through instinct and silhouette. A museum becomes a mirror and a garment becomes a ghost. There’s a gesture here, a lift of the shoulder, a tilt of the head, a pause in the fabric that allows the wearer to become someone they met once in a book or a dream or a hallway with too much velvet. Style lives in that space between and Dior stretches the horizon, Jonathan Anderson tapes it back together with thread dyed in memory.
Every model walks like they’ve done this before, in another life, under another monarchy. Formalwear tells jokes only archives understand and the trench coat plots. The shirt sighs, the trousers hold secrets without flinching and nothing tries to be wearable. Everything demands to be worn.
The music glows beneath it all, the kind that touches the hem of ceremony. There are no instructions. There are no summaries. Dior sends out clothes with blood in their pleats and novels in their pockets. The audience watches, some lean forward, some breathe through their teeth and others already remember this from a future they haven’t reached yet. Anderson moves like a curator lost in his own collection. Every piece arrives curated, arranged, unraveled slightly. The hemline flutters with purpose.
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
DIOR MEN'S
Finals, Summer 26
seen by Adrien Dirand
credits for images
(c) DIOR / scenography and finale images seen by ADRIEN DIRAND