Five days after giving us an anti-normal men’s show filled with vivid yellow wigs and wind-blown hair, Jonathan Anderson is already back on the runway. Today, the Irish designer presented his first couture collection since joining Dior as creative director in 2025—and the beauty look was in full bloom.
“Jonathan wanted to keep a very modern feel to the beauty,” hairstylist Guido Palau tells me backstage, where he’s seated and sipping coffee with the show’s casting director, Ashley Brokaw. We’re surrounded by models dining on cucumber tea sandwiches, espresso, and crêpes while the beauty teams are at play. “Jonathan, Peter, and I took a look at all these ideas of futurism, thinking about the future of the house,” Guido says, referring to Peter Philips, the creative and image director of Christian Dior makeup.
“The collection is youthful and fresh,” Philips tells me—so only an equally fresh beauty look would do. After correcting the skin with the Dior Forever Skin line, he went in with the Rosy Glow Stick in shade Pink Lilac. When you top that off with a swipe of a luminizer that matches your undertone across the tops of your cheekbones and eyelids (the secret to making skin look alive, not unicorn-highlighter-y), “et voila!” Philips says: You bring light to the face—instant glow.
For the handful of unique hair looks, Guido found inspiration in shades of cyclamen—a small but vivid flower that had been gifted to Anderson by former Dior creative director John Galliano—and also within the collection. “The veils are soft shades of pink and violet,” he says, adding that they were hand-dyed through a dipping process. Each of the pieces is worn flat on the top of the head and purposefully hangs in front of the face like super-long, un-cut bangs.
And then there were the floral pieces. “They aren’t meant to look like earrings or buns,” the hairstylist confirms. “To me, they almost look like those big headphones everybody is wearing now. Flowers in the hair always signal romance, but the way they are presented, sitting at the front of the face, is what makes it modern.” A third style was classically brushed back and straight, worn streaming down the back like a waterfall.
Before walking out for their runway moment, Philips adds that there’s one final touch with a not-so-insidery item: a tissue. “I’m putting the Lip Glow oil on every girl when she gets her makeup done,” he says, adding that each shade changes slightly to match the model’s pH. “But right before they walk out, every model will dab their lips with a tissue, so it’s just barely glossy, just barely shining in the light.”
All in all, the future at Dior is looking bright—or, should we say, luminous and fresh?
