Revisiting Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Homme FW26, With Clearer Eyes

Three voices, one collision

At Dior’s FW26 show, Jonathan Anderson presented a menswear collection that felt like the echo of three very distinct voices colliding.

There was Paul Poiret, the Orientalist dreamer whose liberated approach to draping once freed women from corsets; there was Dior itself, with its architectural discipline; and there was Jonathan, insisting on his own instincts, pushing proportions slightly off balance, and asking, in the manner only he can, why men dress the way they do.

The answer, if we can call it that, arrived in the form of shrunken Bar jackets that cocooned yet constrained, tunic-length wool sweaters, and coats trimmed with faux-fur cuffs.

There were strass-studded tops that winked at Poiret, capelets expanded into voluminous parkas, and asymmetries that whispered mischief into Dior’s storied archive. It was, in short, a wardrobe where structure exists only to be undone.

Optical games

Jonathan’s risk-taking did not stop at proportion. There were optical illusions at play, cargo trousers buttoned at the front to round the silhouette, neon-yellow mullet wigs that refracted the light of the runway, and skirts or skirt-like garments that made the traditionally masculine vocabulary feel queer.

There were iridescent caftans over jeans, satin trousers in peach and kaleidoscopic prints, and scarves draped like tablecloths over coats, each element seemingly unrelated, yet threaded together by an audacious vision.

Yet amid the theatricality, moments of clarity emerged. A naval jacket lined entirely in shearling, suits in velours or pony hair, slim wool jackets of impossibly selective fit, and a green fishtail parka with a generous white fur lining.

Order beneath the chaos

In the show notes, Dior framed the collection as “a game of unbridled associations, connecting unlikely elements and letting old and new collide with spontaneous ease.”

It’s a statement that feels almost modest when set against the reality of the runway. To the casual observer, it may seem like chaos; to the attuned eye, it’s a carefully composed exploration of history and the imagination.

What distinguishes FW26 is a subtle but decisive shift in Dior Homme’s direction. Earlier collections hinted at aristocratic preppy codes, filtered through a skatewear lens.

A shift in Dior Homme

This season, his vision is more conceptual, more modern, and undeniably androgynous. These are clothes conceived more for thought than for routine and garments that invite contemplation.

Whether these experimental forms will translate into commercial success remains an open question.

But in a climate where conventional taste is in flux and the line between avant-garde and appealing is increasingly subjective, Dior asks a more urgent question: are we ready to see menswear as a field for ideas and playful imagination? The market may not answer today, but Jonathan’s vision will be felt tomorrow.

Backstage photos courtesy V Magazine