Reverence and iconoclasm. Successful modern heritage brand reinventions require a balance of those primary ingredients. At his haute couture debut for Christian Dior, Jonathan Anderson reminded us of his gifts for both. Before it started he recalled a story his father recently reminded him of: Young Jonathan asked his parents for the Yellow Pages, or the Irish equivalent, and he went through them, looking for the name John Galliano. When he found it, he called up. He was going to ask if he could come and intern, only it turned out it was a taxi service.
Anderson grew up and graduated from the London College of Fashion, launched an eponymous label, and led the transformation of Loewe from a smallish leather goods brand to an LVMH mini powerhouse at the nexus of fashion, art, and pop culture. After being named creative director of Christian Dior last year, he finally got his meeting with Galliano—first in the studio and again today when the former Dior designer stopped by backstage before taking his place in the front row opposite the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron.
“When I was at school—even before I went to school—John was a hero of mine,” Anderson said at a preview. “For me in the modern-day world, he is Dior. He did a longer period than Christian Dior himself.” A bouquet of cyclamen Galliano presented as a gift became the genesis of Anderson’s couture. The little flowers poked out of the moss that decorated the ceiling, and large bunches of them—fabric, not real—decorated the models’ ears. Galliano, he said, had one piece of advice: “the more you love the brand, the more it will give you back.”
The show started with a trio of dresses, longer versions of Anderson’s ready-to-wear opener and made by hand rather than industrially, with hourglass volumes ruched and stitched in tulle. “I thought, ‘how can we come up with a light structure for Dior?’” It has been suggested elsewhere that if it’s not corseted, it’s not couture. Anderson would beg to disagree.
One of his unorthodoxies here was how he turned to knit, both for the more avant garde dresses (looks 4 and 8) and his more traditional sweaters (looks 42 and 43). “I think there’s so much scope to be done in couture in knit and there are so many different ways to approach it, especially when you take the raw materials and you spin it and knit at the same time,” he explained. Another contrarian position was how he dressed things down, creating high-low combinations like draped embroidered silk evening skirts worn with almost sheer ribbed tank tops. Anybody wondering if couture can be cool had their answer in those three looks.
Less than a week ago Anderson was in this same venue presenting his second men’s runway show. Maybe the biggest surprise today was how merchandised this couture collection was: with oversize leather bags, silk jacquard envelope clutches, and sliced mother-of-pearl minaudières; with loafers crafted from 18th century textiles and stoles made of alpaca and silk satin; with hand-painted aluminum fabric jewelry as lifelike as the real things. The whole wunderkammer was on offer at the Dior Villa, a new VVIC shopping salon the brand is setting up.
For the non-.001% public Anderson has magicked together a weeklong exhibition at the Musée Rodin that will showcase his designs alongside original pieces by Christian Dior and sculptures by Magdalene Odundo, an artist whose work he collects and who contributed updates to the Lady Dior bag.
At a preview Anderson confessed that if he was offered a couture gig three years ago he would’ve shrugged it off. Not interested, really? “I was trying to find what the purpose was, but then I applied it to how I love craft, and I realized, well, this is just an endangered craft. So how do you protect it?” He continued: “You go and you see someone showing you how to entirely construct a jacket by hand and you go to the atelier and there’s no sewing machines, and you realize why clothing can be magical.” Just as Galliano promised him.
