By Aaron Kok - published
Can a rave feel fashionable? Perhaps, if it’s shaped in the right hands. For his spring/summer 2027 menswear outing for the House of Dior, Jonathan Anderson placed his in the Musée Nissim de Camondo, a former private residence near Paris’ idyllic Parc Monceau filled with 18th-century decorative arts and, crucially, currently in the middle of restoration. That last detail mattered, as the grand old rooms are now caught between past polish and future repair, thus becoming a neat metaphor for Anderson’s project at Dior: take the codes, loosen the seams, let a little disorder creep into the salon.
And with any great party, the music sets the tone, as the first model who plugged his phone into the aux cord demonstrated so clearly. The soundtrack by Fred Again sharpened Anderson’s point of sampling and remixing, where familiar things returned altered: pinstripes that were not woven, scarves that were not scarves, jeans that doubled up as jewellery, and so on.
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The premise set by Anderson was “soirée segues into house party”, which sounds like the sort of thing that happens when someone’s parents are away and the good crystal has been moved to a locked cabinet. Anderson has always had a sharp instinct for character, and here he imagined a boy emerging from a very grand night out with his bow tie crooked, his jacket borrowed, jeans destroyed and his sense of propriety only partially intact. It was Dior as after-party archaeology where formalwear meets the grit and the grime of a good night out. A tuxedo coexists with ripped jeans, a tailored coat is thrown over pink denim shorts, and so on. Here, the manners remain impeccable, even when the clothes looked like they spent the night on the glossy parquet floor.
This was a clever continuation of the language Anderson has been building since arriving at Dior. Where the debut two seasons ago leaned into historical quotation with a certain courtly strangeness, this collection felt more lived-in, seductive and, importantly, more agile. The designer has spoken about something formal becoming undone, and that tension gave the show its pulse. Dior is a house of discipline, after all, and Anderson’s instinct is to tilt this rigor until it starts behaving differently.
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The opening looks did exactly that: pinstripes and houndstooth, those most earnest emblems of menswear respectability, appeared printed onto silk chiffon rather than woven into cloth. This was tailoring reduced to a mirage and while the gesture was brainy, it was also unexpectedly practical in the great heatwave of Paris. A suit that understands summer as a physical condition feels like an act of intelligence.
Throughout the collection, Anderson kept playing with recognition. A fully sequinned trouser mimicked the democratic five-pocket jeans, while polka dots were rendered as a field of sequins that brought a peculiar sense of fizzy glamour to a motif that can so easily tip into cuteness. Elsewhere, slashed denim was embellished with garlands of fine silver chains, as though decay itself had been sent back to the atelier for an injection of refinement. This is where Anderson is especially good: he understands that luxury today does not always need to look pristine and sometimes it is more interesting when it looks tampered with.
Denim, one of the collection’s major through-lines and an article of clothing gathering plenty of renewed attention this season, was treated almost as a couture material. Rose-pink jeans appeared with one cuff tucked in, and Japanese denim shirts were patchworked, with their embroidered threads pulled and then re-stitched to lend the surface a hand-touched complexity. There were denim bags too, including a spongy tote worked with Dior’s cannage motif and made more casual than usual.
The archival moves were just as pointed. Anderson lifted a trompe l’oeil scarf motif from the Maison’s 1979 haute couture collection, and embroidered it onto striped silk vests and shirts. The Bar jacket returned with long fringes at the cuffs and hem, a canonical Dior shape made ragged without losing its authority and echoing what was shown last month at his cruise 2027 collection. Another look translated scrolls, leaves and shells from an 18th-century gentleman’s coat into silver thread, a reminder that Anderson’s irreverence is often underpinned by almost obsessive research.
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Accessories carried some of the collection’s punchiest moments: crystal pavé sunglasses added a hard glint to the boys’ sleepy decadence, and the disco ball boots—inspired by the show invitation—made the party metaphor alive without feeling gauche. Even better were the boots whose woven surface was deliberately dishevelled, with three tiny ladybirds wandering across them. It was a minute, almost absurd detail, which is precisely why it worked. Colour helped keep the mood buoyant as metallics flashed throughout, from silver sequins to glimmering footwear. Earth tones grounded the more decorative pieces, while pastels such as yellow, mint and pale pink lent the collection a faintly sugared quality.
For all its decorative wit, the collection’s real achievement was its sense of momentum. Yes, much of Anderson’s charge for Dior’s menswear lies in its youthful styling, but the designer is also teaching the House how to loosen its posture without losing its poise. The tuxedo, the Bar, the couture flourish and the battered jeans all met somewhere between the salon and the dance floor. Under the glow of the morning sun, they looked changed, and better for it.