Jonathan Anderson, the New Christian Dior
Jonathan Anderson isn’t merely the creative director of Dior Homme, as was announced by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in mid-April 2025. Instead, Jonathan Anderson is the creative director of Dior.
The Northern Irish designer is responsible for the French fashion house’s womenswear, menswear, couture, and accessories. Yes, he is governing over the lot.
This marks the first time Dior has had a single creative director since establishing its menswear line in 1969. And it is also the first time Jonathan Anderson will be tasked with creating couture.
“I am incredibly honored to be given the opportunity to unite Dior’s women’s, men’s, and couture collections under a single, cohesive vision. My instinct is to be led by the house’s empathetic spirit, established by Dior himself,” Anderson said in a statement.
“I look forward to working alongside its legendary ateliers to craft the next chapter of this incredible story.”
The 40-year-old designer will be Dior’s eighth Couturier, taking the reigns from Maria Grazia Chiuri who presented her final Dior collection last week — officially titled a cruise collection, but featuring a heavy selection of Haute Couture looks.
“He is the most talented designer of his generation,” said Bernard Arnault about Anderson when announcing the news, rallying behind the designer he’s entrusting to change the fortunes of LVMH’s second-biggest fashion house.
With Dior’s profits dropping last year and at the beginning of 2025, giving Anderson sole creative control is a roll of the dice. However, the designer’s huge successes in his previous role at fellow LVMH-owned brand LOEWE provide a strong justification for the promotion.
His tenure at the Spanish luxury house proved he could be immensely profitable, create artful runway spectacles, and build a world around a brand where it exists beyond fashion (in the case of LOEWE, it built strong ties to the art world).
But Haute Couture? The illustrious world of bespoke dressmaking is a new playing field for Anderson to operate in.
Anderson's semi-wearable concoctions, where real grass grows from garments and hoodies are sculpted to look as though made from Play-Doh, mark some of his most trailblazing work. And Haute Couture offers a chance for his now-famously wild imagination to be on full display, not bound by the commercial pressures of ready-to-wear.
We've become accustomed to Anderson finding inventive ways to turn clothing into surreal experiments. Will he use couture as an opportunity to push the boundaries of fashion even further?
The first time we’ll see Anderson’s Couture in action will be in October (the house is skipping the Haute Couture shows in July), by which time we will have already seen his menswear and womenswear output. And these will be just a few of the 18 collections he is now tasked with making per year (10 for Dior and 8 for his eponymous brand J.W. Anderson, when including its UNIQLO collaboration).
This means his first couture show tops off a trio of Dior debuts for Anderson, officially setting his Dior reign in action. And it will also give us a first look at Jonathan Anderson's genius being elevated by Dior's most masterful craftspeople.
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