‘When vogue, movie and structure work collectively, it’s an empowering factor,’ says movie director Luca Guadagnino, who explored the hyperlinks between the mediums when designing the present set for Jonathan Anderson’s first Dior womenswear assortment, for S/S 2026, which debuted final October. A collaborative venture, it was the second time Guadagnino and manufacturing designer Stefano Baisi had labored with Anderson, who was the costume designer on Guadagnino’s 2024 movie Queer.
Anderson’s transient for the present was for a standalone area that additionally acknowledged his respect for Dior’s historical past. Says Guadagnino: ‘The best way Jonathan works is to contain folks pricey to him, pushing all people to get to their limits. It’s stunning to see that the area we created was actually actual – bodily, huge, very architectural. It didn’t really feel transient.’
Stefano Baisi and Luca Guadagnino
(Picture credit score: Claudette Barius)
The Dior S/S 2026 womenswear present area, that includes the inverted pyramid
(Picture credit score: Adrien Dirand)
‘The best way Jonathan works is to contain folks pricey to him, pushing all people to get to their limits’
Luca Guadagnino
The aim-built area was dominated by an inverted pyramid that protruded from the ceiling, changing into a display screen because the present started. On it, performed a specifically commissioned movie by British director Adam Curtis, greatest recognized for his documentaries on energy, politics and the media. Anderson was eager for the area to be monumental, an idea he launched within the runway set for his S/S 2026 menswear assortment for Dior in Paris, which drew inspiration from Berlin’s atmospheric Gemäldegalerie artwork museum. ‘There’s all the time a beautiful playfulness in what Jonathan does,’ says Guadagnino.
The womenswear present additionally responded to its location within the Jardin des Tuileries, reverse the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. ‘We began to replicate on the axis that linked the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, and on the concept of an iconic Paris landmark. The reverse pyramid was one of many subjects we mentioned, and that was the second by which Stefano and I introduced this architectural museum sensitivity to the place. After which – and this was an exquisite instinct from Jonathan – we considered utilizing the pyramid not simply as ornament, however because the diamond upon which this video might be proven, letting you into the brand new period at Dior.’
The field that friends had acquired the week earlier than the present, containing the present’s invitation
(Picture credit score: Adrien Dirand)
The inverted pyramid confirmed a movie by Adam Curtis
(Picture credit score: Adrien Dirand)
The modernist backdrop was offset by the evocative narrative of Curtis’ movie, which interspersed archival footage along with his distinctive eclecticism. Clips from Dior’s historical past are juxtaposed towards fragments from horror motion pictures. Curtis retains the anxiousness cranked up all through, ending abruptly on a pure white body, signalling the clear slate Anderson is starting at Dior.
‘I believe the documentary-style approach by which Adam works impressed Jonathan, exhibiting a greater option to talk,’ says Baisi. ‘He has this huge problem of designing a brand new assortment for a model that has its personal vital historical past. He’s been very profitable in writing his personal imaginative and prescient. Utilizing irony is the important thing to his success, and this additionally comes by means of within the lens of the best way Adam works.’
Taken collectively, the movie and the set confront Dior’s historical past, earlier than turning the web page to Anderson’s new chapter. ‘The thought of constructing a mini haunted mansion movie – which is historically Anglo-Saxon Gothic, from an Anglo-Saxon designer and filmmaker – reveals that the ghosts inhabit the previous and the current, and it’s inevitable that we’ve to cope with these ghosts,’ Guadagnino says. ‘What was stunning right here was that not solely did Dior go for this very evocative piece, however when the film completed in the course of the present, the viewers had an unimaginable response to it even earlier than the primary look was out. It was very emotional and really sturdy.’
This text seems within the Wallpaper* March Model 2026 subject, accessible in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information + Subscribe to Wallpaper* at the moment
