The house of Dior has taken a historic leap by appointing Jonathan Anderson as the creative director not only of menswear, but also womenswear and haute couture. For the first time since Christian Dior himself, the brand’s entire creative vision is now entrusted to one designer. This move is not just a staffing decision - it’s a strategic answer to the urgent challenges of the contemporary fashion industry.
Why Did Dior Hire Anderson?
In an era where runway trends hit the high street within weeks, Dior needs a designer who can create pieces that are unrepeatable, impossible to duplicate. Anderson is exactly that.
His work at Loewe has been defined by intellectual fashion - a careful dance between art and craft. There’s nothing literal or trend-driven in his collections. Instead, he draws from archives, cultural references, and manual techniques that simply don’t translate into fast fashion. Dior is looking to recapture an aura of true rarity - when clothes aren’t just beautiful, but lose all meaning outside their original context.
A Unifying Creative Force
Anderson’s appointment is also an attempt to craft a single, coherent creative voice for the brand. Until now, Dior was split between Maria Grazia Chiuri’s world of womenswear and Kim Jones’s men’s collections, each with distinct aesthetics. But today, the house needs a unified visual language - something that resonates globally and speaks with cultural depth.
Anderson has the rare ability to merge masculine and feminine, theatrical and wearable, classic and conceptual. It’s this flexibility that may allow Dior to lead once again in crafting fashion that cannot be mistaken for anything else.
Luxury Must Be Desired Again - Not Just Expensive
Dior’s ambition isn’t just to sell expensive clothes. The goal is to restore emotional value to luxury: to create a desire to own something not because it signals status, but because it holds meaning, experience, and intention. In an oversaturated, over-replicated world, that’s perhaps the hardest thing to achieve. And it’s exactly where Anderson’s strength lies.
18 Collections a Year - Fashion at the Edge of Human Limits
Anderson will now be responsible for a staggering 18 collections a year - an extraordinary workload, even by fashion’s high standards. His output spans three platforms:
• Dior - 10 collections per year
• 4 women’s prêt-à-porter
• 4 men’s prêt-à-porter
• 2 haute couture
• JW Anderson - 6 collections per year
• Seasonal menswear and womenswear shown in Paris and Milan
• JW Anderson x Uniqlo - 2 collections per year
• A long-running mass-market collaboration that has become a cult favorite
That number - 18 - speaks not just to the scale of production, but to the industry’s belief in Anderson’s creative leadership. He’s already being compared to Karl Lagerfeld, who simultaneously steered Chanel, Fendi, and his own brand with a signature touch.
But the stakes for Anderson are different: it’s not just about volume, but about creating a sense of irreplaceability in every collection. That’s precisely what Dior hired him to do - to make fashion desirable again, deep again, uncopyable.
And we believe he can.
