‘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 undertaking, 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 house that additionally acknowledged his respect for Dior’s historical past. Says Guadagnino: ‘The way in which Jonathan works is to contain folks expensive to him, pushing everyone to get to their limits. It’s stunning to see that the house 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 house, that includes the inverted pyramid
(Picture credit score: Adrien Dirand)
‘The way in which Jonathan works is to contain folks expensive to him, pushing everyone to get to their limits’
Luca Guadagnino
The aim-built house was dominated by an inverted pyramid that protruded from the ceiling, changing into a display because the present started. On it, performed a specifically commissioned movie by British director Adam Curtis, finest identified for his documentaries on energy, politics and the media. Anderson was eager for the house 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 at all times a stunning 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 thought of an iconic Paris landmark. The reverse pyramid was one of many matters we mentioned, and that was the second during 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 could possibly be proven, letting you into the brand new period at Dior.’
The field that company 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 films. 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 method during which Adam works impressed Jonathan, exhibiting a greater solution 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 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 creating a mini haunted mansion movie – which is historically Anglo-Saxon Gothic, from an Anglo-Saxon designer and filmmaker – exhibits 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 through 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.’
dior.com
This text seems within the Wallpaper* March Type 2026 difficulty, obtainable in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information + Subscribe to Wallpaper* immediately
Supply: Wallpaper
