Dior Fall Winter 2025-2026 “What’s with Pterodactyls”? Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Dior.

Icebergs, Pterodactyls, and a Time Machine Gone Wrong

Ah, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the self-proclaimed philosopher of fashion, has graced us once again with a runway spectacle that leaves us all questioning not only the meaning of fashion but perhaps the meaning of life itself. This season, the Dior Creative Director has taken inspiration from… well, something. Exactly what that something is remains a mystery—perhaps a chaotic museum tour where someone accidentally mixed up the prehistoric exhibit with a climate change awareness campaign.

Picture this: a runway strewn with icebergs, floating rocks that look like they were borrowed from an early PlayStation game, and, to top it all off, Pterodactyls swinging from strings like an underfunded animatronic display at the Museum of Natural History. All this, of course, in the service of Dior’s heritage. Ah yes, when one thinks of Dior, one inevitably thinks of… prehistoric birds and geological formations from the dawn of time. It’s couture meets Jurassic Park, but with none of the fun, just existential confusion.

The Collection: A Fashionable Fossil Record

As we attempt to piece together the logic (or lack thereof) behind this display, the press release insists that “fashion is a vector of transformation.” If by transformation they mean an existential crisis, then yes, mission accomplished. Chiuri’s latest collection claims to revisit Dior’s history while forging a “pluralistic dialogue” (translation: throwing random references together and calling it intellectual).

The pieces themselves? A greatest-hits mashup of things we’ve seen before but now with added drama. There’s a white shirt—because nothing says “breaking gender stereotypes” like a garment that’s been in every closet since forever. There are ruffles, described as “a fluctuating element—echoing the perception we have of ourselves.” (If your perception of yourself fluctuates like a detachable lace collar, perhaps it’s time for some introspection.) The collection also nods to Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, because why reference one thing when you can reference everything and hope no one asks too many questions?

And, of course, the J’adore Dior t-shirt is back, because nostalgia sells and nothing says avant-garde like recycling a 2000s trend.

Dior’s Cinematic Universe: From Woolf to Wilson to the Ice Age

The collection, we’re told, is inspired by Robert Wilson’s “visual dramaturgy.” This explains why the models moved like they were trapped in an avant-garde theater performance where time itself had lost meaning. The runway, punctuated by ominous scenery changes from prehistoric craters to an inexplicable iceberg, felt less like a fashion show and more like a bizarre dream sequence where Dior suddenly found itself in a National Geographic documentary.

Shoulders are rounded, coats are hyper-structured, and lace collars make an appearance (because apparently, we’re also throwing in some Bridgerton cosplay for good measure). There are raincoats, because why not? And somewhere in this mess, we are expected to believe that all of this culminates in “a femininity that imagines possible futures.” Ah yes, because nothing says future like borrowing every aesthetic from the past and setting it against an Ice Age diorama.

Final Thoughts: A Trip Through Time

What is the takeaway from all this? Dior’s Fall-Winter 2025-2026 show feels like someone got access to a time machine, pressed too many buttons at once, and crash-landed in a prehistoric fever dream. The result? A collection that is as bewildering as it is pretentious, wrapped in a press release so dense with philosophical buzzwords that it should qualify as required reading for a semiotics class.

But then again, perhaps this is the future of fashion. A future where dinosaurs roam the runway, icebergs defy climate change warnings, and a floating rock holds the key to Dior’s true essence. Or maybe it’s just another season of fashion trying to convince us it’s deep when, in reality, it’s just another spectacle in a never-ending cycle of over-the-top theatrics.

See All Looks Dior Fall Winter 2025-2026