Dior Could Use a Distillation

Bright and early Wednesday morning, at a preview of the Dior collection I would see six hours later, the designer Jonathan Anderson ticked through his inspirations: the fuzz rocker Mk.gee, the long-dead couturier Paul Poiret, the 1940s, the 1960s, “Withnail and I” and anime.

It was clear that Mr. Anderson had been thinking about many — perhaps too many — disparate ideas.

There were tailcoats made of cable knits, fit for black tie at a retirement home. Bell-curved Bar jackets and distressed cargo jorts screamed of bad taste. Skinny pants bordered on leggings, while houndstooth dress trousers came with legs as wide as dinner menus. (“Angst” and “wrongness” were criteria Mr. Anderson said he was going for.)

In the midst of all that there were perfect single-breasted suits in cashmere and flannel that could have sprung straight from Savile Row. Mr. Anderson is clearly enjoying the production abilities of one of the world’s largest luxury houses.

What else? Models wore mullets of Big Bird yellow with glam rock tanks (actually, a for-men retooling of a silk crepe flapper dress Poiret created a century ago). They slithered in python monk straps with Cuban heels (heels are officially a trend) and sweaters with fringe epaulets. The show’s erratic extravagance, per Mr. Anderson, stemmed from the way Mr. Poiret and his aristocratic friends fashioned gala attire out of duvets and blankets. Yet the last look featured an Arc’teryx-type ski parka that seemed to have no connection to anything else.

It was a lot to digest. No one could say Mr. Anderson isn’t making interesting clothes. He’s just offering too much.

“People look to Dior as a fashion house, and I think it needs to be pushed,” said Mr. Anderson, who, to some critics, took a similar everything-all-at-once approach with his first women’s collection in June. “You have to see the fashion show as an idea that then animates the reality of what’s in store.”

He has a point. I have seen lots of good, even great, clothes this week that do nothing to push men’s fashion forward.

But I craved a crisper mission statement from him at Dior. At Loewe, where Mr. Anderson previously worked, I’d regularly leave shows talking with my seatmate about one central idea so obvious that everyone got it immediately. I recall, in particular, a show in June 2023 where I left the site debating the frighteningly high-waist jeans that Mr. Anderson showed over and over. They were a progressive idea, given proper emphasis. Dior could benefit from a similar distillation.

Other things worth knowing about:

A visit to a Parisian architectural marvel. Kenzo held its latest presentation in the 32-year-old home of the late designer Kenzo Takada. It’s like a Shinto shrine as reimagined by Richard Neutra. I watched the koi fish in its bamboo garden, I clomped up the softwood stairs, I admired the window between the kitchen and deck for passing food. And when I left, I realized I forgot to take in the clothes.
How will we keep our butts warm? Every fashion house seems to have agreed that jackets must be cropped. Dior’s blazers were so abbreviated they nearly revealed the models’s navels. Lemaire sent out scrunched leather jackets, and Auralee shortened its puffers to the belt line.
Missed the memo. No one here is wearing button-up shirts, having swapped them for a black or navy sweater with a whisper of an undershirt poking out at the collar. I wore a white button-up today and felt as if I’d skipped some sort of meeting on this.

The Indelible Fit of the Day

When this man passed me as I was entering the Lemaire show, I doubled back and chased him down because I had to get a photo. The outfit looks like something you’d see on the runway right now: a teal slicker (so similar to what Auralee showed yesterday!) worn over a Tang jacket with some earthy corduroys. And the beret to top it off. If I looked as great as he does in a beret, I’d wear one every day.