Dior Summer 2026 Men by Jonathan Anderson “Dior by Dior, or Dior Omelette Recipe”. Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Dior / Archives.

Jonathan Anderson, newly enthroned as the Creative Director of Dior Men, made his debut with all the subtlety of a porcelain plate and 3 eggs hurled across a Versailles dining hall. Quite literally, in fact—his invitation arrived as 3 eggs, a romantic nod to “heritage” which, like much of this collection, felt excavated more from an overfunded secondhand shop than from any coherent cultural consciousness. Welcome to Dior by Dior, by Jonathan Anderson: a wildflower field trip through costume drama, British prep-school trauma, and some very esoteric religious iconography.

Let’s start with the obvious: this was not a runway. It was a spatial metaphor. Divided in two—one side for celebrities and legacy clients, the other for mere mortals (bloggers, buyers, and the fashionably adjacent)—the show physically enacted a dystopian metaphor worthy of Elysium.

Somewhere between the silk capes and Donegal tweeds, you could almost hear Jodie Foster barking in crisp French-accented English about preserving purity. Replace “space station” with “front row,” and suddenly the resemblance between her character and a certain CEO becomes… uncanny.

Anderson’s show notes promised a “decoding and recoding” of Dior’s legacy. Translation: a hyper-intellectual justification for wearing a tallit with tzitzit as a runway shawl. NOT IT! A spiritual awakening? Or a hyper-ironic nod to the fashion world’s ever-expanding buffet of sacred symbols? Is this the Bar Mitzvah of high fashion? Or the first collection for a young, rich, itinerant rabbi with a trust fund?

And then, of course, came the Etonian invasion. Imagine a parade of Ethan-from-Eton types—post-debate club, pre-gap year in Bhutan—draped in pastel brocade and sporting capes with the conviction of young monarchs-in-training. The silhouette? Less “future of menswear” and more Papy Fait de la Résistance: Guy-Hubert Bourdelle reincarnated in Dior, gallantly saving France one embroidered waistcoat at a time. The capes were killing it—though whether by style or sheer irony remains open to interpretation.

Waistcoats emerged like artifacts lifted directly from the 18th century—elaborate, over-buttoned, and dramatically impractical. Think Gulliver in Lilliput, not as a satire of empire, but as a style memo: jackets shrunk and tailored to proportions befitting a court appointment in miniature monarchy. Tailcoats followed suit, as if Dior’s menswear board had been restaffed with Austen’s forgotten cousins—those minor gentry who never inherit anything but still insist on dressing for the opera. Add a whisper of Donegal tweed and a regimental tie, and it all spiraled into a pageant of formality with the solemnity of a government census and the flourish of a theatre student interpreting Swift.

Ah yes, Chardin—the philosopher-janitor of 18th-century still lifes—was name-dropped, naturally. Two of his paintings were hung inside the velvet-lined venue (a tribute to Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, where rich people go to feel feelings). It was all very tasteful, very hushed, very curated. But one wonders: was this sincerity or satire? Were we meant to believe that Anderson, the master of knowing camp, has suddenly developed an earnest obsession with domestic still lifes and linen ponytails?

Speaking of linen: the bags were everywhere. Naturally. From the literary fetish of Baudelaire and Capote (translated into Dior Book Totes) to Dracula-emblazoned crossbodies, it’s clear that the ghosts of literature are now being resurrected as commercial accessories, as Anderson already did in his collaboration with Uniqlo. Bram Stoker, posthumously employed in the Dior marketing department. One can only hope he was paid in royalties.

And then came the pullovers—dozens of them—marching down the runway like a well-behaved rugby team that accidentally enrolled in fashion school. The resemblance to Ralph Lauren was uncanny, almost touching, right down to the collegiate collars and the “I-own-a-stable-in-Surrey” palette. Only this time, the pony was replaced with a dangling Dior logo, politely tugging from the hem like an afterthought or a brand intern begging for attention. Heritage, yes—but whose, exactly? It was less recoding Dior and more reissuing Ralph, with a French accent and a luxury surcharge.

Still, the collection does pose a real question: Is Jonathan Anderson the new Dior? Has Dior by Dior become Dior by way of Camp David, Canterbury, and Chabad House? In truth, it’s less a redefinition than an aristocratic hallucination—visions of empire, canon, and costume, stitched together for an audience desperate for novelty and too terrified to say the emperor is wearing a prayer shawl.

But in this fractured Dior-verse, perhaps that’s the point. The elite on one side, the plebs on the other, and in between: an aesthetic field trip to the Museum of Meaning. It’s a performance. It’s a product – 3 eggs. It’s a plate with Dior Omelette recipe.

Are we ready for Eton British boarding school? We don’t have a choice. Ethan is already ordered the cape, pullover a-la Ralph Lauren and rucksack.

Postcryptum

Dear family, do you believe this is all unjustified – written to entertain our readers and attract new ones? Please think again.

Do you think dissecting the original Christian Dior looks will bring buyers back to the stores?

That dividing the show audience behind walls on “rich and famous” / “not rich” / “just buyers”  will bring back interest and the new customers?

Do you think “St Martins homework” at Dior will do any good? That those Dracula bags are destined to go viral in sales?

Or that staging fake simplicity with overused François Boucher clichés – little lambs and all – will somehow make Dior desirable again? It’s not MDAA (Make Dior Attractive Again)…

Marie Antoinette’s blissful ignorance and disconnection from reality ultimately cost her her head. Disconnection from the world beyond Versailles proved fatal. I hope you know that.

“Designed for the boardroom, the ball player and fashion’s front row, you can see the archetypes of clients the house is targeting.
So much new, so much to sell!
Bags prominent and ripe with new best-sellers” – this is NOT something to write in the notes for the show.

At Louis Vuitton, trunks remain the hottest item—a design created more than a century ago. At Christian Dior flower elegant dress or structured gray dress created 80 years is still in style (the one Sabrina Carpenter is wearing for the show).

You know how to analyze the market… The rest… well… this amusement comes with a very high price, erasing the brand’s identity in the process.

See All Looks Dior Summer 2026 Men by Jonathan Anderson