Celebrities on the front rows of fashion shows have become such a familiar sight that even the paparazzi seem to find it hard to get worked up about them any more. How else to explain the fact that on Monday, as all eyes in Paris turned to Dior and the designer Jonathan Anderson’s couture debut, Anya Taylor-Joy and Monica Barbaro could chat with barely an interruption and Eugene Levy and Mike Feist were essentially left on their own? It’s real-life characters that are getting the attention now.
The most-photographed guest might actually have been Lauren Sánchez Bezos, posing enthusiastically in a light blue Dior skirt suit with a resplendent fur, or fur-effect, trim, (at least until Rihanna arrived, almost an hour late). But the most unexpected, the one who turned the most heads, was John Galliano.
It had been almost 15 years since the former Dior designer was fired, in 2011, after an antisemitic rant in a Paris bar turned him into a fashion pariah. Though he went to rehab, atoned and had a subsequent career at Maison Margiela, a brand he left in 2024, he had not been to a Dior show since (and never as a guest). But, Mr. Anderson said in a preview, “When I was at university, John was God. He built Dior in the modern world. It just felt really nice to have him back in.”
It felt like Mr. Anderson thought it was time for the brand to get some closure and turn a page, the better to start again. It is, after all, what he has been trying to do for Dior with his clothes.
And after four collections, he really seemed to be getting somewhere.
Couture as a fashion form — created by only the hautest of the haute houses, priced astronomically, made to order for the very few — can often appear a worthy anachronism at best; a piece of heritage more like an art project than an actual proposition for dress.
But in Mr. Anderson’s hands, it came alive. And not because the show was held beneath a ceiling covered in moss and hung with cyclamen, a reference to a bouquet that Mr. Galliano brought Mr. Anderson during a visit early in his tenure.
Because the designer finally stopped over-intellectualizing, and lightened up.
Though the collection had nods to the work of the designers who had come before, including the architectural minimalism of Raf Simons, the courtly costume of Mr. Galliano and the perennial Dior volumes, it didn’t look remotely referential.
It looked a little sci-fi and a little historical. But most of all, it looked unburdened by the past, or the weight of the Dior name. Like royalty from the planet Zog had come down to Earth and decided to romp in the fields of Provence.
An opening trio of sleeveless dresses was covered in silk georgette that had been micropleated to swirl around the body, with bulbous skirts that swayed as the models walked thanks to inner carapaces constructed from hoops of tulle. They resembled a cross between Marie Antoinette’s party frocks and ceremonial urns.
Oversize tunics made from tiny feathers and airy cashmere knits slouched off one shoulder atop silky evening pants (also covered in feathers) under short wrap kilts, occasionally extruding what seemed to be silk seed pods, rather than fringe. Thin tank tops were worn with long jacquard evening skirts puffed out at the waist like a reverse bustle, or a handy arm rest. A narrow black python coat contained just the shadow of a shrunken Bar silhouette.
Along with the clothes came handbags trailing yards of poison-green raffia, or crafted from chain mail with the head and tail of a metal weasel. Minaudières were covered with upcycled 18th-century textiles; alpaca stoles pinned with antique cameos; and bangles embedded with fragments of meteorites.
Thus did Mr. Anderson take the familiar and render it new. Couture may be out of the reach of almost everyone, but who doesn’t want the jolt of a fresh perspective? Besides, the effect wasn’t only limited to the clothes.
After the show, Mr. Galliano, who had been sitting next to Anna Wintour, was swarmed by other audience members. Rihanna came over to kiss him hello. So did Christian Louboutin. So did various members of the Arnault family, which owns LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which owns Dior. So did so many people, Mr. Galliano seemed kind of overwhelmed. Even as, in the wake of Mr. Anderson’s collection, he was pushed along in the direction everyone else was moving: forward.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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