Dior Men's AW'26: The Dior Man Looks Back To Contradict

For his first menswear collection for Dior, Jonathan Anderson presented the picture of a juvenile boy growing up in the lycées of the luxurious 16th Arrondissement in Marie Antoinette-era Paris, albeit dishevelled with the sensibilities of you'd only expect in 90s indie sleaze. For his second men's collection, the young man was now grown into a modern-day flâneur, and the little rebellions against upper-class conventions in the previous collection is replaced by 80s punk and the flowy silhouettes of Paul Poiret, who in his time, had changed European fashion by breaking free of corsets and structured silhouettes.

But the shift in aesthetic is in no means arbitrary. It's meant to make you ask questions, initiate a discourse. And what better place than Musée Rodin to unveil a collection like this? As Esquire India made its way to the venue last Wednesday, passing the statue of The Thinker on our way felt like a subtle call to think about the power of fashion to contradict the zeitgeist.

This contradiction showed up everywhere. Canary yellow hair chopped rather haphazardly flowed down the runway on the same look as black suits and formal navy shirts. Bar jackets were cut right above the hip - as opposed to the thigh - to show just a sliver of skin.

Overcoat sleeves were cuffed with fur, so as to hang between resembling a pompom and a boot sleeve. The opening three looks seemed like they were picked up from actual Poiret dresses and paired with jeans and snakeskin boots. The more casual shirts put epaulets and floral trousers so vibrant they could be seen miles away.

Amidst all of this, blink-and-you-miss-it references to the previous collection were sprinkled throughout. Whimsy popped its head like elaborate superhero-like capes sewn into overcoats. In one look, it almost made the fur cuffs seem like magic orbs you'd see surrounding the hands of comic book heroes.

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The library-going preppy young man from last time was still there, but his pastels were now replaced by sequins. Amidst all of this, Anderson’s shrewd ways to incorporate logos into the looks resulted in golden, logo-inscribed belt buckles that looked like they were inspired by mirrors from Snow White.

Anderson became the sole creative director of Dior last year, the first one to be so since Christian Dior himself, and for a brand that's known to play it safe, he has pushed the mood board into newer, more ambitious directions. Before his debut show, Anderson had said in an interview, “I’ve been here four months, and the first five shows will show different aspects. Some will contradict, others will be completely radical.”

It's interesting how the contradiction has played out. Paul Poiret was the designer who put women out of corsets. Christian Dior looked back at history and brought the silhouette back with his New Look. Jonathan Anderson, now a successor to his work in ways closer than any other creative director before him, looked back at what existed before the New Look, and brought the un-structured look back to Dior. Rather poetic, you would think.

All in all, as a designer, Jonathan Anderson's shows are a show of character sketches. With that in mind, the Dior man of 2026, was the character who contradicted, and in doing so, brought forth a new era at Dior.