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The Book of Jonathan
After quietly working at Dior for several months, Jonathan Anderson has officially and publicly taken over the men’s and women’s collections. Now he’ll have to achieve something that’s never been done before, at arguably the most challenging time in Dior’s history.
Inner Circle Exclusive
Everyone wants Anderson to succeed at Dior, from the internet fandom and sycophantic press to industry analysts and couture clients, but there’s no denying that what he is trying to achieve is unprecedented, and will require a superhuman effort on his part. Photo: Thomas Razzano/BFA.com
June 5, 2025
By the time
Jonathan Anderson posted a bed of four-leaf clovers on his
Instagram grid on Monday morning, announcing at last that he was the new creative director of Dior’s men’s and women’s collections, he had already been working at the company for several months. In his first weeks in the men’s studio, which he entered shortly after
Kim Jones said his goodbyes in late January, team members were asked to sign N.D.A.s to keep his presence and operation under wraps.
Last spring, as I
reported at the time, Anderson was weighing all his options, and there was a real sense that he might consider moving to Kering—most likely to take over Gucci from
Sabato De Sarno. But there was also movement at Dior. In early 2023, LVMH chairman and C.E.O.
Bernard Arnault had installed his eldest child,
Delphine, at the company in an executive shuffle that included moving Dior C.E.O.
Pietro Beccari to Louis Vuitton. At that time, Dior was fresh off a seven-year run of tremendous growth, fueled by the potent commercial work of both
Maria Grazia Chiuri and Jones. (Never forget the J’Adior
slingback, or the manbagification of the classic
Saddle.)
But Beccari’s engine had begun to sputter due to a mix of designer fatigue, lack of product innovation, and changes in consumer behavior that only truly manifested in late 2024. It seems incredibly obvious now that the late-pandemic luxury boom was unsustainable. The growing aloofness of the Chinese consumer—a far bigger issue—was less easy to predict.
Last September, as Delphine Arnault took over as C.E.O. of the brand, I took note of the
challenges at the house and suggested that Anderson and
Hedi Slimane were the top candidates. In retrospect, it’s likely that Anderson’s appointment at Dior had been decided around this time. Anderson’s final Loewe runway collection, shown on September 27, was clearly his
final show. I had heard speculation that very week that
Jack McCollough and
Lazaro Hernandez had come to Paris to meet with
Sidney Toledano, the longtime Arnault deputy, to discuss backfilling Anderson at Loewe.
Anyway, by the time Delphine made it official with Anderson, her problems had mounted behind the scenes, and it felt more important than ever that LVMH execute its latest game of designer musical chairs as gracefully as possible. From what I’ve been told, Jones effectively quit, or at least came to a mutual agreement regarding how the partnership should end. (The group, and in particular
Bernard Arnault, remains indebted to Jones for his service at both Louis Vuitton
and Dior.)
Chiuri’s exit was messier, in part because her contract ran through the middle of 2025. In a recent interview with
The Business of Fashion, Delphine said that the group waited to officially announce Anderson until after Chiuri’s May 27 show in Rome as a gesture of respect. Delphine’s father seemed to have gone rogue during an investor meeting in May, however, when he decided to casually mention that Anderson would be taking over the men’s portion of the house.
We all know that the Chiuri situation was more complicated than simply waiting things out, to the detriment of her own legacy. But it was also to the detriment of the Anderson announcement. I still hold out hope that she might end up at Fendi, although she certainly doesn’t need the money. LVMH may put their designers under unsurmountable pressure, but they also pay them very well.
10 Billion Bucks Stop Here
Regardless, the enthusiasm for Anderson eclipsed the wah-wah rollout. Everyone wants him to succeed, from the internet fandom and sycophantic press to industry analysts and couture clients. But there’s no denying that what he is trying to achieve is unprecedented, and will require a superhuman effort on his part.
Dior is estimated to do around $10 billion in sales, give or take a million or two, considering the declines over the past year. (LVMH does not break out sales of individual brands.) Even in a lull, it’s still a massive business, requiring a team of executives, each leading individual categories, reporting into Delphine. Among her recent recruits has been
Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, who serves as her official deputy (they worked together at Louis Vuitton), and
Benedetta Petruzzo, director of Christian Dior Couture, who was poached from Miu Miu. And don’t forget
Olivier Bialobos, Dior’s “chief communication and image officer,” probably the most powerful C.M.O.-type in the industry, and definitely the group.
And yet, the buck stops with Delphine and Anderson, himself, who will now oversee
18 collections a year across Dior, J.W. Anderson, and Uniqlo. If anything, that actually understates the scope of his job, when you consider all the additional Dior capsule collections, not to mention red carpet looks—sometimes 10 or more original gowns per event. There was a time when designers were backing away from such tremendous responsibilities, fearful of mental and physical exhaustion. Not Anderson.
Delphine’s greatest challenge will be allowing Anderson to truly exercise his
creativity while reinforcing the value of the Dior brand in markets where consumers simply don’t care as much as they once did. I had dinner with a Shanghai-based executive last night, and he confessed that the outlook in China remains grim, because the mindset of the consumer there has fundamentally changed.
There is already plenty of speculation within the walls of Dior about how it’s going. I was told by multiple parties that Delphine dismissed Anderson’s first attempt at a menswear collection, concluding that it wasn’t
Dior enough. However, someone else close to the center of the operation told me that was impossible: Anderson hasn’t shown anybody
anything. Whatever the truth of the matter, it’s relatively common for a first collection to be scrapped, and Anderson’s a big boy—he can handle whatever constructive feedback comes at him. The real test will be whether he can succeed in a world where he doesn’t have complete control, like he did at Loewe. I suspect, if he succeeds early on in this process, he will gain some of what he’s lost on that front. Yes, women’s, men’s, and couture may be a tremendous undertaking, but I can see a world where Anderson is overseeing jewelry and childrenswear, too.
Can he pull it off? Our first clue arrives June 27.
