Movie Magic: Jonathan Anderson Stages A Cinematic And Subversive Dior Cruise Debut In Los Angeles

The credits are rolling on Jonathan Anderson’s first chapter at Dior. This June, the Irish designer will complete one full year in his role as the creative director of the maison’s menswear and womenswear arms. What better way to celebrate the end of this first act than in true cinematic fashion, with a tribute to Dior’s history in the Golden Age of Hollywood?

Dior—both the maison and the man—have a storied entanglement with cinema. Christian Dior had been designing costumes for films even before he founded the maison, eventually earning an Oscar nomination for his work on Terminal Station. Anderson’s point of departure for this collection was Dior’s work on Hitchcock’s noir thriller Stage Fright, starring Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich famously required that her character, Charlotte Inwood, be costumed in Dior, which she communicated to the studio through an utterly fabulous decree: “No Dior, no Dietrich.” The collection statement, presented in the format of a script, also names Golden Age actresses and Dior muses like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and Audrey Hepburn as key sources of inspiration.

There’s a very specific image conjured by this set of references—a hyper-feminine, Old Hollywood vision of cinched-waist gowns and perfectly coiffed curls. What Anderson delivered, however, was something slightly different. Anderson’s LA is not only one of airbrushed elegance and icy Hitchcock blondes, but something a little edgier and seedier. Models wove around vintage convertibles, silhouetted by the brutalist concrete of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and soundtracked by a grungy ‘90s electronic playlist. A number of looks, especially the menswear offerings, felt more streetwear than high fashion, combining ripped jeans with oversized button-down shirts. The jeans came with a textural twist, of course: thin filaments of silver embroidered into the ripped strands of cotton, making them shimmer in the low light of the runway.

The male models wore custom headpieces by Philip Treacy, each spelling a different word in feathers: ‘Dior’, for some, tongue-in-cheek slogans like ‘star’ or ‘buzz’ for others. Bar jackets, one of Anderson’s favourite sartorial muses, were shown with dramatically unravelling hems and wispy threads. The slouchy Diorly bag, another Anderson creation, was entirely in its element amongst the collection’s grungier looks. In referencing Hollywood’s cast of characters, Anderson paid homage not only to the ever-glamorous studio darlings but also to the LA kids of now, those moonlighting as actors while working shifts as waiters and waitresses during the day.

Though it wasn’t all gloom and grunge—a large part of the collection came with a delicacy that contrasted with the edgy ambience. The show opened with three vividly coloured dropped-waist gowns in a swingy, jersey-like fabric that Anderson has been a particular fan of during his time at Dior. The designer enjoys opening his shows with trios of airy dresses that play with proportion and movement, having done it for his womenswear and Haute Couture debuts. For Cruise 2027, the three opening dresses were adorned with bunches of fabric gathered into floral shapes, pleats fanning out underneath. Singer Sabrina Carpenter watched from the front row in the buttercup-yellow opening look, having styled it with white lingerie peeking out from under the sheer fabric.

There was an abundance of similar dropped-waist dresses, be it in smooth satin or wispy chiffon, and Dietrich’s Charlotte Inwood did indeed get her cameo in the form of feathered detailing on a series of slinky gowns. Largely, though, the collection’s exploration of feminine glamour rarely mimicked the obvious style codes of the 1940s and ‘50s, instead relying more on Anderson’s own design language at Dior. The Bar jacket, a defining motif of the era’s New Look, did make plenty of appearances, but rarely in its original form. The collection was also a textural playground—as most of Anderson’s Dior collections have been—with many of the nature-inspired details recalling January’s Haute Couture collection. A fiery golden dress inspired by California’s native yellow poppies was particularly striking.

As the third act of the Dior Cruise Picture Show drew to a close, it became clear that what we had watched was not exactly a Hitchcock noir, a Dietrich blockbuster, or even a Christian Dior masterpiece—it was a distinctly Jonathan Anderson work of art. Anderson has spoken about his desire to shape Dior not through radical new archetypes, but a slower, more subtle sense of style. “Christian Dior was very good at archetypes—he could have a show of 60 dresses and each dress would be completely different,” Anderson told i-d last year. “I wanted [Dior] to become more about style than an archetype… where insiders would understand who it was, but an external person may not even question it as a new image.”

The Cruise 2027 collection proved that the designer is well on his way to achieving this goal, and has a remarkably well-defined sense of style at Dior—in silhouette, texture, and technique. The majority of the looks shown could easily have fit into any of his previous Dior collections, yet they still carried a sense of freshness and surprise. When the credits did ultimately roll on the Dior Cruise 2027 show, set to the retro-electronic hit Kelly Watch The Stars, there was a sense that the Anderson era is only getting started.

This story first appeared on GRAZIA Singapore and has been republished here with permission.