By Seth Khouri
“Why as men, do we dress the way we do?” Jonothan Anderson asked himself while shaping the Dior Homme FW26 collection. It is a question too vast to resolve quickly, and perhaps too ingrained to ever be completely understood. History, through its fixation on order, has long reduced dress–for both men and women–to a rigid system of behaviour, dictating how one should move, occupy space, and fundamentally be perceived. Expression in this sense has rarely been understood outside of a narrow framework. Yet here, Anderson not only ponders on the question, but dares to fracture it. Since his appointment at Dior last May, his work has signalled a deliberate shift–one that prioritizes inquiry and curiosity over conformity, emotion over uniformity even so. While such a question garners a gentle nod of recognition from Anderson’s audience, a more compelling question comes to mind: not why men dress as they do, but what does the Dior man choose to represent now.
It is no short of fact that Anderson’s touchstones change their shape each season. For this offering, his starting place came in the form of a plaque honouring Paul Peirot on the pavement outside Dior’s 30 Avenue Montaigne headquarters. For Anderson, this touchstone became threaded throughout the sixty-three-look collection. The first three looks took the upper-half of unworn Periot dresses acquired by Anderson–all sequined and vibrant in colour–paired back against slim cut denim and leather boots. This vision, radical for Dior, felt done already elsewhere. This however did not refrain Anderson’s signature codes from flourishing. Later, Anderson leant into the traditional tailoring he began with last spring summer. Shoulder-padded napoleon jackets sat alongside suited waist coats and heavy-weight blazers.
Elsewhere, Anderson threw all caution to the wind, adopting a devil-may-care attitude within his execution. While still looking back at his previous offerings, this season felt changed, as if his ideas were still prominent yet this time channelled and deepened. Capes were tucked beneath collars and sewn into seam lines while sleeve hems on blazers erupted with voluminous fur. One look held deep resonance; a cropped wool blazer in slate grey sat unbuttoned, revealing bare skin beneath. The Blazer, anchoring heavy floral jacquard pants, the waist line folded over itself in a drastic fold, revealing a contrasting print beneath.
According to the show notes, Anderson’s offering was intended as a game of unbridled associations, connecting unlikely elements and letting old and new collide with spontaneous ease. Here, it becomes evident that there was an abundance of ideas on the runway, each it seems, competing for attention. For some, this reads as Anderson’s ability to hold many references at once. For others, it raises questions of cohesion, where conceptual zeal often outpaces execution. While it is naive to discredit Anderson of his cultural understanding, it isn’t without merit to acknowledge where these articulation visions have elsewhere appeared. For some, the Napoleon jackets resemble offerings from Kenzo, for others, the folded over pants speak to Klausner’s influence at Dries Van Noten. The tension, then, lies not in the reference itself, but in how distinctly those references are made his own.
Anderson, it seems, continues his pursuit of challenging the archetype. Echoing his touchstones’ own affinity for the game of dress, he delivers a statement that is both deliberate and cohesive. As result, Anderson loosens the grip of inherited codes, allowing the act of dressing to not behave as an adherence to societal expectation, but as an unapologetic act of self-expression.
