Jonathan Anderson unveiled his debut cruise collection for Dior in Los Angeles on Wednesday – an homage to the city’s unique influence on art, design and film. And it was the latest example of the Northern Irish couturier’s exceptional gift for storytelling.
In program notes written like a movie script, Anderson entitled the collection Wiltshire Boulevard, after the famed thoroughfare where this show was staged. A co-ed cast of models marched underneath the recently opened $724 million David Geffen Galleries by Pritzker-Prize winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, a giant concrete and glass neo-brutalist design built as part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which lent a David Lynchian air to the show.
Off-beat characters like hustlers or teenage extras from Grease wandered among classic convertibles, their ignition keys done up as Dior logos and chains — the latest example of Anderson’s ability to create must-have baubles. With John Lee Hooker’s moody blues on the soundtrack, the action kicked off.
The collection referenced California, from local poppies on Dior floral prints or hollyhocks-fabric flower scarves to Venetian blind patterns – a classic film noir motif – seen in superb gray wool-flannel coats. Crime drama chic was apparent too in a recreation of a Dior Bar jacket worn by Marlene Dietrich in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1953 movie Stage Fright, for which Monsieur created the costumes. (At a welcome diner on Tuesday, Dior even projected the black and white movie inside Charlie Chaplin’s Studios in a mock drive-in set, where influencers took turns posing inside Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles.)
In the days before the show, Dior seemed to take over, with billboards and social media featuring Irish model-actress Alison Oliver as a latter-day Grace Kelly driving on an empty Pacific highway, to hundreds of flag-shaped Dior ads hung from lampposts along several miles of Sunset Boulevard.
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In effect, the cruise runway season has become a key battleground between major Continental fashion houses, who compete to stage the most creative and mediatic events, or lure the largest coterie of stars and VICs. Chanel kicked off this high-stakes season in late April in Biarritz, while Gucci, Louis Vuitton – both in New York — and Max Mara in Shanghai will follow in the next few weeks.
Dior’s display attracted Miley Cyrus, Anya Taylor-Joy, Mikey Madison, and Sabrina Carpenter, who each posed before a gray concrete Dior logo in contrasting styles. Respectively: an oddly low-key double denim ‘Texas tuxedo’ shirt and jeans; a little black dress; Irish tweed suit; and yellow flower-bedecked dress. That fourth look on Carpenter was echoed in an opening trio of drop-waisted chiffon dresses with high-collars worn with flats – sure to be a major trend.
In effect, this Dior show felt like a paradigm moment, a meeting of the three Cs – cruise, cinema, and commerce. Anderson is no neophyte when it comes to LA. Long before he was given control of Dior last year, while he was still directing Loewe – a fellow brand in the giant luxury conglomerate LVMH — he signed with the powerful United Talent Agency in 2014. His acclaimed film costume credits include Queer by Luca Guadagnino starring Daniel Craig (a Loewe ambassador), and Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connnor, and Mike Faist.
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In a pre-show preview with Elite Traveler, Anderson underlined the unique rapport that Monsieur Dior had developed with this city and cinema. “Nowadays, we think that it’s a given that designers dress the red carpet. But back in the 1950s what Dior did was revolutionary, developing incredible relationships with giant studios like Paramount and Warner Brothers. People think of Monsieur Dior as romantic but he was also a very savvy businessman. He basically dressed all the iconic actresses of his time,” he said, mentioning Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Anderson’s vision of California was far more artistic. Realizing a “long-held dream,” he collaborated with Ed Ruscha on a great series of shirts, featuring the Pop Artist’s irreverent graphic script. With industrial style numerals and texts on checked shirts and piped tops, worn with ripped denim jeans with super fine silver chains — looks enjoyed by front-row stars Al Pacino, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum.
“We gave Ed carte blanche and took whatever he sent us. I think it’s important to have some fun in cruise and inject irony,” chuckled Anderson, who wore jeans and check shirt as he took his bow.
There was a dreamy quality to much of this collection, as Anderson linked a series of ideas. From Christian Dior’s profound belief when he opened his house in 1948 that women desperately needed to dream to escape the horrors of World War II, to the Surrealists dreamlike artwork he sold in his galleries in the 1930s, all the way to Hollywood itself, the ultimate Dream Factory.
This was a show as a cross-cultural shift, where the French brand’s key handbag, the Saddle, was reinvented repeatedly in Southern California style. Padded leather versions riffing on convertible upholstery — cobalt-blue sequinned Rhinestone Cowboy style, or fabric flower versions that looked like the peonies or lupins that grow in the Hollywood Hills. While Anderson’s revamped Bar jackets were given a fresh spin with remarkable crystalline degradé or bedraggled gothic finishes.
In a meticulously organized event, each concrete block seat had a checkered cannage Dior wool-and-cashmere blanket, which scores of guests wrapped around their shoulders as the sun set on the Hollywood Hills, and temperatures dipped into the low 50s Fahrenheit.
Another savvy businessman sat beaming front-row, Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, which despite a tricky 2026 still managed to score net profit of €10.9 billion, albeit on a 6 percent decline in revenues to €80.8 billion.
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“A sublime show,” was Europe’s richest man’s typically laconic comment. “Now you must enjoy the viewing and party. And New York!” he said as the guests ascended into the giant David Geffen Galleries above for a private viewing. It turned out to boast a truly brilliant and eclectic display that ranged from ancient and mythical statues like the Lansdowne Artemis and Bateman Mercury from William Randolph Hearst’s estate, placed beside a huge Francis Bacon triptych, to rare Indian statuary of Ganesh or 18th-century oil paintings by Jacques-Louis David or Gilbert Stuart.
The dreamy cruise moment continuing as a flotilla of limousines ferried guests to the after-party – inevitably a rolling dance fete inside the mythical Chateau Marmont. They like to say in LA that the famed hotel is populated by celebrities on their way up or on their way down. This whole Dior cruise felt very much like an upward trajectory.
