San Francisco Frontiers - Anderson channels nature in Dior Haute Couture debut

The 41-year-old has the daunting task of designing all three fashion lines at one of the world's biggest brands -- women's and men's ready-to-wear, plus Haute Couture -- the first person to do so since Christian Dior himself.

Just days after sending out dozens of new looks during Paris Men's Fashion Week in a show that some observers saw as daring but lacking coherence, the Northern Irish creative was back with his first Haute Couture collection.

It featured floral motifs on fabrics or as accessories, while sculptural bulbous dresses were inspired by the work of Kenya-born ceramicist Magdelene Odundo.

"When you copy nature, you always learn something," Anderson declared in his show notes, which compared Haute Couture to a living ecosystem that is "evolving, adapting, enduring".

Other noteworthy pieces included dresses with spherical birdcage-inspired silhouettes, while other models wore transparent vest tops with their dresses gathered around their waists.

A-list attendees at the show at the Rodin Museum included actors Jennifer Lawrence and singer Rihanna as well as Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez.

Before the show, Anderson admitted in an interview with the Business of Fashion website that he previously thought couture was "irrelevant", adding that he never really "understood the glamour behind it".

"Now, I feel like I'm doing a PhD in couture," he explained.

- Mixed men's -

Last Wednesday, the former Loewe designer delivered his second menswear collection since his promotion to French luxury conglomerate LVMH's second-largest fashion brand in April last year.

Inspired by the idea of "today's aristocrats", it featured "angst and a kind of wrongness, engulfing wrong taste", Anderson told reporters, departing from his safer approach last year.

He radically redrew the Dior signature Bar jacket and sent out shirts adorned with rhinestone-fringed epaulettes while models donned yellow or spiked wigs.

Influential fashion website WWD said Anderson had gone "searching for thrills" in what amounted to a "fashion version of extreme mountaineering".

The New York Times said the man behind his own JW Anderson brand and considered one of his generation's leading lights was "thinking about many -- perhaps too many -- disparate ideas".

"He's taking Dior somewhere completely unprecedented. But I think he's exactly where he should be, since he's not there to rehash old ideas," Adrien Communier from GQ magazine in France told AFP.

- Highlights -

Elsewhere on Monday, Bezos and Sanchez joined Hollywood legend Demi Moore for a celeb-packed Schiaparelli show, while Indian designer Rahul Mishra dazzled with his latest collection.

On Tuesday, all eyes will be on Chanel designer Matthieu Blazy's debut Haute Couture show at the Grand Palais exhibition space.

The 41-year-old Franco-Belgian, who was appointed in December 2024 after a highly regarded stint at Bottega Veneta, made a strong impression with his debut women's ready-to-wear collection.

He also demonstrated his command of the house's craftsmanship at a December show in the New York subway system.

Among other highlights, Armani will unveil the Italian house's first Haute Couture collection without the oversight of its founder, Giorgio, who died in early September at the age of 91.

X.White--SFF