Decoding Dior, recoding himself: Jonathan Anderson’s most ambitious chapter yet

When we find him in his design studio, located a stone’s throw from the Champs-Élysées, Jonathan Anderson paces back and forth on his balcony, his gaze fixed on the ground, a cigarette tightly gripped between his fingers, which he drags on with relish. Light-wash Levi’s jeans and a faded blue cotton polo shirt matching his eyes, tousled hair, discreet sneakers on his feet, this first image, emanating an adolescent aura and a palpable nervousness, almost makes us forget that we are in the presence of one of the most visionary and prolific designers of his generation. Founder of the London-based brand JW Anderson in 2008, worker of miracles at Loewe, where, in the space of 11 years, he laid the foundations of a subtly handcrafted stylistic rhetoric that won over critics and a discerning public—boosting the turnover of the Spanish luxury flagship to over one-and-a-half billion euros—he is now at the helm of Dior. This is the first time a designer has been entrusted with the full 360-degree vision of LVMH’s fashion flagship, where he will have to develop around 10 collections a year. In an atmosphere of intense anticipation, the virtuoso, originally from Northern Ireland, presented his first collection at the end of June as part of the Spring/Summer 2026 menswear shows

More a procession of personalities, looks, and styles rather than a pure exercise in fashion, the collection saw Jonathan Anderson’s DNA pulse to the rhythm of major chords of the Dior symphony. A jacket—a variation of the Bar model in Donegal tweed and emblematic of the New Look—worn over organic cotton cargo shorts layered like a mille-feuille of pleats inspired by the Delft dress; a tailcoat in smooth gray Dior velvet worn directly against the chest; a vest in lilac moiré silk over a knit sweater riddled with roses dear to the founder of the house; a houndstooth coat that required three thousand hours of embroidery in metallic thread…nods to carefully selected Dior codes burst forth in a halo of references ranging from Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the 18th century, passing through a preppy spirit. Will this baptism of fire—an ode to youth, applauded by the industry and critics alike—succeed in calming the anxieties of Jonathan Anderson, for whom the act of creating is a reason for living? It’s far from certain.

Harper’s Bazaar: Last June, you presented your first menswear collection under the Dior banner. How did you approach this new challenge?
Jonathan Anderson: Dior is a fashion icon, a historic house that comes with the package of a house of this stature. I immediately understood that I would have to start by decoding, then rethinking and recoding. In concrete terms, it’s about “cleaning up” menswear, neutralising it, in a way, to keep only the elements and codes that we will explore over the coming seasons. This slow-burning process is a challenge in a society that tends to want everything to be definitively established and perfect from the first try. Imagine that this show is the afterword to a book; the foundations of the storytelling are laid, and we will gradually increase the volume over time. 

HB: Is it easy to tackle the foundations of such a giant?
JA: It’s a dizzying process having to dig, to explore an almost sacred space in which you have to be highly creative without listening to comments. That’s the big difference with Loewe; here, everyone has their say on what Dior should or shouldn’t be. The whole challenge is to remain human while having a thick skin. It takes some time to get used to that…

HB: How do you protect your creativity, your intuition, from the pressure?

JA: By keeping in mind that fulfilling my mission will take time. Today, being the artistic director of a fashion house is very difficult because the system no longer allows time to find your footing and develop. Business, marketing, everything operates in a state of urgency. I have a great deal of respect for Bernard Arnault, precisely because he thinks long-term. He has always thought that way. Of course, you have to deal with the present moment, but also be able to know where history will be in three years. If you go too fast, you don’t establish a dialogue with the consumer. The equation is tricky for a creator: you have to offer a personal and original vision, seducing an existing customer, recruiting a new one, and meeting expectations. It’s a complex balance. Not to mention that we are now faced with two realities that have nothing to do with each other: the online reality and the off line reality, with which we have to deal simultaneously. That’s a lot…I think that, in fact, you have to trust your gut while being very realistic about the stakes. But deep down, that suits me, I like being in the position of having to prove myself.

HB: What did Dior represent to you before you were appointed artistic director?
JA: To be perfectly honest, I never thought about Dior, so I didn’t ask myself what it represented. In fact, if you had asked me a year ago if I would hold this position, I would have said no. It wasn’t a fantasy. But having said that, I realised that many of my favourite dresses in the history of fashion are by Dior. And I have the chance today to admire them up close. It’s amazing to think that he [Christian Dior] presented a collection of 60 dresses, and you were faced with 60 individual ideas. We could create 60 fashion shows today based on that. But the most important thing, it seems to me, is that this brand has known how to reinvent itself. Over the years, it has been able to implode and explode, and that’s a sign of its great strength. Hence its propensity to transform itself. There’s something else too. When I think of Christian Dior, I think of empathy. I feel that he dressed women with empathy. And that empathy is missing from the brand. I’m going to explore this avenue in light of today.

HB: What is the greatest danger for a designer?
JA: To think that they have reached their goal. If you tell yourself that you’ve done it, you’ve reached your destination, you are no longer creative because subconsciously you want to protect what you have established, you fall into a formula, and you are no longer able to shake things up. I see my job as a perpetual work in progress, and that’s what excites me. Approaching things from this perspective is also a good way to keep your ego in check.

HB: What part of your job do you prefer?
JA: I love working, exchanging ideas, debating with my team. I am surrounded by loyal people, some of whom have been by my side for over 15 years and whom I chose because I admire them. And I encourage them to express their creativity as freely as possible, without making them feel judged, so that they challenge me. I hate micromanagement, and when I’m forced into it, it makes me angry. Because if I’ve hired someone, it’s because they’re supposed to do something that I can’t do. I can’t stand ‘yes people’

HB: What inspires you about the state of fashion today?
JA: We are witnessing a contraction of its economy, but that’s quite normal if you look at its unbridled growth over the two or three years post-Covid. Paradoxically, I find it an exciting time because it’s the moment to reinvest in ideas. But you can’t have 400 ideas at once. You have to filter them, divide them. The other problem today is that everyone has an opinion without us knowing the label of that opinion. How can we be constructive based on an opinion whose value is muted? We end up listening to noise. It makes me think of a reflection by Fran Lebowitz, for whom I have great respect. She believes that a knowledgeable audience is as important to culture as the artists themselves, and that this audience no longer exists. But we need voices that challenge us, to be confronted, stimulated by enlightened, rational and constructive thinking.

HB: What does the concept of masculinity evoke for you?
JA: It’s become a kind of fog. When I started working in fashion, the question of gender fluidity was part of mainstream conversations, almost to the point of being taken for granted. But we’re now in a political period that’s generating a contradiction to that idea. Everything happened very quickly, and now we’re seeing a regression. That being said, some restrictions about men have been shattered. Take the handbag, for example. If you see a man carrying a Birkin, the subtitle is no longer “a man carrying a woman’s bag,” but “a man carrying a bag that costs a fortune.” We’re no longer in a male-female system, we’re in a value system. The message is: I’m displaying a symbol of my wealth.

HB: Tell me about your style…
JA: When I was younger, I loved consuming fashion and I was daring. I remember as a teenager buying myself a pair of jeans and an orange nylon jacket by Jean Paul Gaultier, later I was crazy about Miu Miu’s first menswear collection... But since I’ve been working non-stop trying to dress people in the future, and I’m in fitting rooms all day, the last thing I want to do in the morning is make any kind of decision about what I’m going to wear. In fact, my style is neutral. I wear a sort of uniform, like when I went to school in Northern Ireland. The menswear I create is a fantasy of what I would like to wear, and it has to stay that way

HB: What is your main character trait?
JA: I’m determined. As soon as I wake up in the morning, even if I have no energy, I see things through. I can have 40 meetings in a day, it’s not a problem. My other character trait is that I have an attention deficit. I get bored very easily. If I’m not learning something or stimulated by an idea, I feel like I’ve wasted my day.

HB: It must be complicated to live alongside you?
JA: I can confirm that. It’s very difficult, but I can’t help it, I love what I do.

HB: What is your greatest weakness?
JA: I’m sometimes too sensitive. I take things personally. I thought I’d made progress, that I was more detached, but recently I’ve felt so insecure that I’ve realized I don’t have as thick a skin as I thought. I think this new job is making me vulnerable. And I’m starting to wonder: do I have to become a robot? At the same time, I have so much to do that I don’t have time to pay attention to the noise around me.

HB: What do you do when you’re not working? 
JA: I go to museums, I think about the costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s next film, an experience I see as a welcome escape. But most of the time I stay home. I’m surrounded by people all day, so I need to be alone. In silence. And doing basic, manual things. Laundry, ironing, cooking, gardening…It gives me the feeling of reconnecting with who I truly am, of reopening the window of normality. You asked me earlier what I liked best about my job. Well, what I like least is having to play the social role of the creator of Dior, which often makes me uncomfortable. It might seem surprising, but I’m a very reserved person.

Images: Jonathan Anderson/ Portrait by DAVID SIMS/ Courtesy the brand

This article first appeared in the February 2026 issue of Harper's Bazaar India 

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