With the official arrival of the first creations signed by Jonathan Anderson, a new era seems to have begun at Dior. The French maison has embarked on a historic shift: for the first time since the days of Monsieur Dior, a single creative director is simultaneously overseeing womenswear, menswear and haute couture. The runway debut, however, has taken shape through a material language — handbags. Since early January, Anderson’s designs have been arriving in stores and, surprisingly, he has chosen leather as the starting point for expressing his vision. More precisely, a leather meadow transformed into a field of experimentation, symbols and new narratives.
Dior’s leather meadow
The heart of this rebirth, revealed by the maison in a video, is the reinterpretation of the iconic Lady Dior. This time it is transformed into a poetic, almost magical object. The creative director has not simply refreshed the design: Anderson has turned the bag into a canvas for a personal imagination that weaves together talismans (already part of Dior’s history), irony and memory — all, of course, in leather.
To give tangible form to his vision, the designer created a flowering meadow made of three-dimensional leather four-leaf clovers in lambskin applied to the back of the bag. A ladybird has also been added, already emerging as a signature of his work. The entire piece is rendered in green, a nod to Anderson’s Northern Irish roots. It is a new language in which every detail becomes a narrative gesture, breaking the bag’s classical perfection and projecting it into a freer, almost surreal territory. Leather, worked through reliefs, embroidery and hyper-material constructions, becomes a living substance, capable of evoking rebirth.
The new models
But it does not end there. Alongside the reimagined icons, Jonathan Anderson has introduced a new model, the Dior Bow, which encapsulates his vision. Clean lines, a soft structure and a design that recalls the shape of a bow. Here, leather becomes sculpture, volume, gesture. The bow — another recurring motif in Dior’s history — returns as both a structural and decorative element, transformed into a graphic sign. Once again, the choice falls on leather. And on four-leaf clovers. Through this interplay, Anderson redraws the Dior lexicon: a new imagery that is rapidly taking shape, where tradition becomes a living ground for metamorphosis.
Photo: Dior
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