This week, Hollywood’s brightest stars gathered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)—not for another gala or an awards ceremony, but for a fashion show. Designer Jonathan Anderson chose the American arts museum to present Dior’s Cruise 2027 collection, inspired by the world of film.
The show’s press release, which came in the form of a movie script, highlighted Christian Dior’s connections to cinema: the French couturier designed costumes for a film before he even founded his fashion house in 1946. He continued to create costumes for films like Terminal Station, Les Infants Terribles, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright. That Hitchcock thriller starred the great Marlene Dietrich, who famously insisted that Dior design her on-screen wardrobe: “No Dior, no Dietrich!”
Stage Fright, and elements of film noir, informed Anderson’s first cruise collection for Dior. The show space mirrored a film set with its dramatic lighting and props like vintage Cadillacs, while the models were meant to embody different characters. “It’s this idea of dressing up. There will be characters that I have done as if we have made costumes,” Anderson told Vogue.
There was plenty for Dior’s leading ladies and men to wear. The opening look, which was also worn by guest Sabrina Carpenter, was a swishy, yellow drop-waist dress adorned with chiffon rosettes.
Flowers are fast becoming a recognisable motif of Anderson’s Dior designs, alluding to Christian Dior’s love for blooms and gardens. In this collection, fabric flowers were pinned onto the shoulders and the waists of glamorous evening dresses, or burst forth from under tailored jackets, or lined the hems of draped silk skirts. Anderson also introduced the Californian poppy to Dior’s inventory of flowers: an exuberant orange dress was completely covered in its petals.
Tailoring also shone, both literally and figuratively, in the Dior Cruise 2027 collection. Traditional menswear fabrics like houndstooth, check and tweed—often used in film noir costumes—came with a slick sheen, thanks to the addition of metallic threads and sequins.
This season, Anderson’s Dior Bar jacket again came in glittering Donegal tweed, but it was given fraying edges for an undone look. Distressing was also seen in the collection’s jeans, crafted from Japanese denim—but in place of loose threads were fine silver chains.
The looks had a lot of character—or perhaps it’s better to say that they demand a lot of character from their wearers. The men’s looks, for example, were styled with glittering beaded capes or whimsical feather hats spelling out words like “STAR” or “BUZZ”. The feather headpieces are crafted by Irish milliner Philip Treacy, and echo words often found in the works of the American pop artist Ed Ruscha. (Ruscha also collaborated with Dior this season for a line-up of men’s shirts embellished with numbers and letters.)
For women, flourish came in the form of crystal-embellished bags resembling ladybirds and bees, as well as flower-topped heels (designed by Nina Christen, of course).
Just as cinema makes what’s ordinary feel larger than life, Anderson’s new Dior collection seeks to add an extra oomph to our wardrobes.
“Christian Dior understood how important the idea of ‘the dream’ was for people after the war—as a form of escapism,” said the designer in the show notes. “He explored this in couture, his Surrealist friends were obsessed with dreams and, of course, Hollywood is ‘The Dream Factory’. It was all part of the same cross-cultural shift.”
For fashion fans with an appetite for sparkle and quirk, the Dior Cruise 2027 collection will feel like a dream come true. Ahead, discover the best looks from the fashion show in LA.
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
