A year ago, Jonathan Anderson staged his hot-ticket Dior debut in Paris inside a massive tent at the Hôtel National des Invalides, showing billowing cargo shorts, schoolboy ties, and rakish military jackets. For his sophomore Dior Men’s spring show on Wednesday morning, the designer threw a house party in the stately rooms and leafy backyard of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, a decorative arts museum by Parc Monceau.
“It’s been the first year now in the brand, so I was thinking to myself, like, ‘Well, how do I take what we did building on this character, what we built in the very first [show], and how does it interlink together?’” Anderson told reporters after the show. This time around, the character—a boyishly posh muse—morphed into a young aristocrat the morning after a night out and back again, his wardrobe oscillating between breezy pajama-like suits, fraying sweaters, cool tuxes, and skinny glitter-coated trousers.
“A few of my friends have younger sons, and especially in London at the moment, there’s a whole new movement of kids going out to raves. Rave culture is starting back up again,” Anderson explained. “You see it in the suburbs, you see it more outside of the city. I see it on the Seine at 7 o’clock in the morning. Something is changing, and kids are dressing up.”
Thus far, each chapter of Jonathan Anderson’s Dior has told a tale of jackets and pants. This time, that tale looked something like a Whit Stillman movie set in upper-crust Paris, except there were ripped jeans and an iPhone plugged into an aux cord that played music by Fred again.., who produced the show’s soundtrack.
“I have a kind of an interesting job as I have to talk to an existing customer, which is a loyal client, and I have to feel about recruiting customers,” Anderson said. “In a weird way, I kind of enjoy screwing with it, do you know what I mean, because you're kind of like, where do you find tension within that character?”
See all the big takeaways from Dior’s show.
