Hooray for Hollywood!—and Jonathan Anderson’s first Dior Cruise Collection

After taking his audience for a promenade in Paris’s Tuileries for spring 2026 a few months ago, Jonathan Anderson brought them to Tinseltown for Dior Cruise. The creative director held his first resort outing for the house at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, known as LACMA for short. The show, which took place inside the Brutalist-style concrete atrium of the brand-new David Geffen Galleries, was mounted to look like a painting by Ed Ruscha or Edward Hopper, or maybe even a scene in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Beginning just after sunset, the zig-zagging runway was dotted with old, dimly lit streetlamps and classic cars. It was melancholic but also a little Pop art.

Anderson is very good at digging deep into his references, taking what on the surface might seem corny or overly theatrical and adding clever nuance. To wit: the Met Gala dress he designed for Sabrina Carpenter, which was made entirely from film strips from the movie Sabrina. Speaking backstage, the designer said he started with a book about Scotty Bowers, an L.A. gas station attendant who, between the 1940s and 1980s, acted as a secret pimp for Hollywood stars, which piqued his interest in the “on-screen and off-screen, the worker and the non-worker.” In other words, this season’s collection was just as much about the business of Hollywood as it was about the modern art and culture of L.A.

From the graphics and colours of Ruscha and Hopper, Anderson moved to the hustle of Bowers, and then to Christian Dior himself, who helped pioneer the idea that the fashion and film industries should work in tandem. Anderson noted that during the 1950s, Monsieur Dior evolved his couturier persona to become truly business savvy, travelling to all the studios, from Warner Brothers to Paramount Pictures, and building relationships with studio heads and actors in order to get his designs on the silver screen. In 1950, actress Marlene Dietrich told Alfred Hitchcock that she would not act in his film Stage Fright unless her costumes were designed by Mr Dior, famously stating, “No Dior, no Dietrich”—a line that Anderson used as an anchor for his collection.

The show was in large part a testament to both Dietrich’s inimitable taste and Mr Dior’s design evolution during the ’50s. There was, of course, a reinterpretation of the tuxedo jacket the couturier once made for Dietrich—the first time it’s ever been recreated at the house. (The original ended up in the possession of Azzedine Alaïa, where it was maintained in private until a year ago, when the Alaïa foundation mounted an exhibition of his Dior collection at Le Galerie Dior in Paris.) There were also drop-waists, primarily in the three opening dresses, which were embellished with poppy appliques in a palette of yellow and blue. Anderson placed strong emphasis on shirting, the best of which were straight-cut shirt dresses in a Fortuny-style micro pleat with asymmetrically placed, covered buttons. But there were also poplin and cotton and sheer shirts too, the kind that, as the designer noted, would have been stocked in department stores during the ’50s.

The Anderson-ized Bar Jacket was shredded at the hem this time around and paired with ripped jeans. Some of the suiting came with flouncy fringe at the waist or neckline, and there was a fair amount of movement and bounce in the balloon-like silhouettes that called back to the spring collection—the fantasy of a stroll through Paris reimagined for streetlamps and retro diner scenes. Most of the looks were accessorised with a single chandelier earring or with versions of the Galliano-era Saddle bag, some in everyday suede or leather, and others, like one inspired by Cadillac cars, done with a bit of novelty in mind.

Anderson showed menswear too, making a literal statement by way of Phillip Treacy hats that spelled out words like “Star,” “Flow,” and “Buzz.” Real fashion heads would have clocked them as versions of one once owned by Isabella Blow, which Anderson said he has tried to buy at various points in his career.

There were certainly plenty of things for a range of customers to buy in this collection, and that seemed to be part of the intent. Anderson acknowledged the continued challenge of moving Dior forward for its breadth of clients, some of whom are die-hard loyalists to the codes invented by the house’s founder, while others are megafans of Galliano’s Dior or lovers of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s romantic touch. Anderson is at once trying to honour the past and writing his own script in this role, and he knows how important it is to balance the fantasy of Dior with the reality of who is actually buying it.

That’s in part why, aside from his forever fascination with film, he’s investing a lot in bigger partnerships with the movie industry, to keep reaching more customers and keep the fantasy—and the fun—alive. “This is a broader picture of what we’ll do over the next 12 months in cinema,” he explained. “It will be something larger, franchises with film. There might be three more costuming movies, one with [director] Luca [Guadaignino], and two will be something else. For me, it’s like, how do you do it so it’s not just product placement? How do you work with the studios differently?”

Anderson’s Cruise collection was another step in a new direction for Dior, a different one, as he said. He is both practical about product and visionary about design, and this has worked well for him in fashion as it likely will in film. But it will take time, as he also pointed out, and patience is key: “The important thing is that I know where it’s going.” Anderson is in the driver’s seat of Dior now, and, if this collection is any indication, he’s taking it somewhere beyond the realms of everyday fashion and luxury—with a little movie magic to sweeten the deal.

This article originally appeared on harperbazaar.com 

Lead image: Dior 

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