Dior Men’s Fall 2026: Through the Looking Glass
- Joelle Diderich
- Jan 21
- 3 min read
Jonathan Anderson cemented his reputation as a risk-taker with a psychedelic-flavored collection inspired by Paul Poiret.
Call it the fashion version of extreme mountaineering.
No sooner has Jonathan Anderson scaled one peak — presenting his first men’s and women’s collections for Dior — than he’s set his sights on the next. Less than a week before he was due to present his debut haute couture line for the French fashion house, Anderson unveiled his sophomore men’s collection, and rather than playing it safe, he went searching for thrills.
Ditching the archival Dior references of his inaugural show last June, he looked instead to the couturier who originally put Avenue Montaigne on the map: Paul Poiret.
Nestled amid the pavement stones in front of Dior’s historic headquarters on the exclusive artery, there’s a mosaic plaque dedicated to Poiret, a marketing genius known for his experimental approach to construction.
The parallels with Anderson are obvious. Less obvious is how this historic designer’s draped forms and Orientalist sensibilities mesh with Dior’s architectural approach to tailoring — not to mention the fact that neither ever designed for men.
It’s precisely this paradox that set Anderson’s fashion antenna tingling. “I kind of like this idea of these two out-of-character landscapes meeting,” he said in a preview. “Dior put the structure in, Poiret took it out.”
His starting point was a purple Poiret dress he acquired from a vintage dealer. It was the inspiration for the opening trio of sequined vests paired with jeans that set the tone for this psychedelic-flavored collection.
Think jacquard pants in electric color combinations, cocoon-like jackets, and polo shirts with sparkling military epaulets. A pair of classic tailored coats was pimped up with chunky shearling cuffs and draped in Art Deco-patterned brocade, woven in Italy by Poiret’s original suppliers. A bronze parka sprouted 3D flowers.
Through Anderson’s looking glass, tailoring took on topsy-turvy proportions. The hourglass curves on shrunken Bar jackets, in houndstooth wool or distressed denim, jutted off just below the armpit, while tailcoats in cable knit and beefy shearling blurred the boundaries of formalwear.
With their fluorescent yellow wigs, massive down coats and asymmetric wrap skirts, some of the models looked like they had strayed from a Junya Watanabe runway. Anderson instead pointed to his predecessor John Galliano, who also referenced Poiret in his Dior collections.
“Dior is about fashion. It never started as a leather goods brand,” he noted. “It has the history of fashion in it, with geniuses like John that created moments of spectacle, which I think people want from the brand. They want theatrics.”
It was the kind of ballsy move that can leave you hanging off a cliff, cementing Anderson’s reputation as a risk-taker, even as he ascends to new summits. “Dior is not going to be a predictable silhouette. I never work that way,” he said. “At the moment, I am on a search for having fun with clothing.”
Still, he made sure to balance the lineup with solidly commercial pieces, like tweed suits with subtly tilted shoulders, glittery knits and loose-fitting jeans. Early feedback from stores, where his first looks dropped on Jan. 2, has been positive. “It’s doing very well. Everyone’s very happy,” Anderson reported.
“I feel like we’re moving at speed here for quite a big machine, and it’s exciting, because you don’t want it to be scripted. I think that’s the problem: the minute something works, then it’s the same every season, and by the time that people are bored of it, you need to change quickly, because if not, how do you get people to tune in again?” he asked.
Anderson may be on to something: several guests sported the pleated white collars he sent out as show invitations, suggesting that where the designer leads, diehards will always follow.
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