The great unknown of the Paris Male Fashion Week, which began on Tuesday, had a name and surname :. The parade of his first collection as a creative director of Dior, an appointment that was announced on June 2, although in April, executive director of LVMH, had anticipated that the Norwegian would design the collection of man, has revealed several of the questions, which were not few. To begin with, because the indications that the brand had been offering during the previous days pointed in different directions: photographs of Basquiat and Lee Radziwill portrayed by Andy Warhol, some images of the new brand ambassador, Kylian Mbappé, which looked like classic garments, and bags of bags designs inspired by roofs of famous books. The bet could be from the saturation of cultural references and proper names to the claim of classical elegance or sport stars.
The good news is that, in a way, no clue was false. Jonathan Anderson’s dior, at least that of his first male collection – the female will be presented in September – is more a road map to maintain the relevance of a luxury firm in 2025 than one commitment to one aesthetic in front of another. Goodbye to the designer as a dictator of taste – that was the case of Christian Dior, the author of the last silhouette adopted unanimously throughout the West, the New Look of 1947 -, hello to the designer as commissioner, collector and maker of beautiful garments and objects that do not necessarily aspire to unseat other beautiful objects.
The space of the parade, a pavilion in Les Invalides in Paris with gray -entered walls, white moldings and wooden floor, inspired by the gemäldegalerie of Berlin, is the frame that allows to understand the metaphor. For Anderson, one maison Historical is like an art museum, where they have the high and the everyday place, the greatest works and the simplest. It is not a strange approach to the designer who. Jonathan Anderson’s dior, more than a laboratory from which to rehearse a groundbreaking aesthetic or an clothing revolution, is a living file, a wardrobe where there must be something for almost everyone. In the press release disseminated on the occasion of the parade, the designer affirms that he intends to reflect on history and wealth, and decode the language of the house to re -encode it. That is why in its extensive collection there are costumes, tracksuits, shirts, knitted garments, coats, shoes, shoes, ties, birds, bags and even dresses.
The predominant silhouette is elongated and slender, especially in models with straight jeans or in costumes. Wealth is in details. The flowers, Dior’s symbol since its inception, starring embroidery, prints and tricoted details. They are in American with care, but also in shoes skater With tissue instep. There are winks to the aristocracy and the historical clothing: exact replicas of nineteenth -century vests and old velvet fractions, a garment that had been absent from the catwalks for a long time. The ties carry diagonal stripes, in the best military or academic tradition, but they do not prevent other models from lighting birds attached to curious postparten necks. The costumes are carried naturally, with the shirt outside the pants or with overlapping layers.
Only some garments leave the classic typologies to claim a playful extravagance that has made Anderson famous. For example, spacious shorts and with bulky wavy pieces that remember a famous sewing dress, knitted jackets that lengthen to the ground – and become a dress – or large coats and layers that evoke the fluid silhouette that Anderson cultivated in their previous destination. But, above all, there are many garments without instruction manual: ochos sweaters, scroll shirts of various colors, pants with tweezers without irony or affectation, precision cut jeans, vests, jackets. A full wardrobe that charges magic thanks to Anderson’s talent and his team to find the perfect cut and color, but also to a very elaborate styling that, perhaps, will be one of the most imitated elements of this parade in the future. Anderson’s proverbial talent to find different and recognizable designs is perceived especially well in the variety of footwear, from leather sandals to sports, through de -dressed shoes, dress shoes or a curious lace -up shoe, with a mixture of materials and volumes of almost handmade appearance, which promises to be one of the viral elements of the collection. They will also be viral, surely, the bags full of wastern tassels, a collaboration with the artist.
So much amplitude and variety might seem lack of definition, but perhaps Jonathan Anderson, which knew how to see the artisanal strength of Loewe and its potential as a cultural catalyst, is formulating here a recipe to reinvent the luxury business at a time when the global figures of the sector are not as flattering as in the past and several brands have been halfway in its attempt to reformulation. According to Anderson’s approach, perhaps the key to survive is not to change everything, but to convert brands into repertoires, files: places full of treasures that do not need to discard, but reinterpret so that they do not lose validity. And in which quality is taken for granted.
