Prior to his womenswear debut for Dior, Jonathan Anderson had been dropping teasers via the red carpet. There was Alba Rohrwacher in a long-sleeved silk navy gown, unadorned but padded at the hips to evoke a Belle Epoque silhouette; there was Greta Lee in a deconstructed tuxedo minidress with a giant bow; there was Anya Taylor-Joy in a bell-shaped princess dress that exploded in a burst of ribbons. All those ideas were present on his spring/summer 2026 runway, but the collection was more a demonstration of how Anderson aimed to translate Dior into the everyday. Of all the heritage Houses turned megabrands, Dior is perhaps the most classically feminine—the House of wasp waists, full skirts, and dresses shaped like flowers. The task Anderson seems to have set himself is to make all this prettiness look a little off, and therefore fresh, and therefore covetable.
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His first look out was a strapless fit-and-flare dress finished with two giant bows and a pair of pumps with bunny ears. Throughout the collection, Anderson would inject more of these little quirks that have defined his eponymous brand and his Loewe. Ladybirds on Lady Dior bags, anyone? The next few looks switched things up. Who would have thought there’d be denim miniskirts on a Dior runway? Anderson showed them with deconstructed tuxedo jackets, Bar jackets with sculptural cut-outs, or matching denim shirts and bowties. Back in June, Anderson turned Christian Dior’s voluminous Delft dress into cargo shorts at his men’s show; here, they became miniskirts that jutted out like crinolines. The New Look, Monsieur Dior’s greatest and weightiest legacy, also got the shrunken treatment—the jacket exaggeratedly cropped and curved; the skirt, a pleated tennis style.
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Anderson has basically shaken the stuffing out of everything in pursuit of lightness. The Junon, a flower-like couture gown with beaded petals, was reinterpreted as a knit minidress—casual enough for brunch. A formal look could be as easy as a white dress-shirt/blouse hybrid worn with jersey pants rolled and pleated at the hip for a more couture sensibility. There were also dresses padded and moulded into ‘50s silhouettes but made of jersey t-shirt material; or dresses with pannier silhouettes but light enough to bob and flutter, with built-in pockets. Another standout was the tiered bubble skirt, worn with a soft, oversized V-neck knit. And like at the men’s show, there were capes for casual dressing galore—here, they looked best worn with jeans and loafers, or Regency vests and miniskirts. With Anderson, you never quite know which off-kilter mix you’re getting and that keeps it very exciting.