Anderson's first women's collection for Dior opened with Lord Byron's 1815 poem "She Walks in Beauty" read aloud as the film played — a beauty that is "soft, calm, eloquent," in Byronic terms, no matter who is in charge. Seventy-four looks, shown at the Tuileries, organized around "dressing as a way to become a character on the stage that is life" — a reference to As You Like It. Gowns in the Dior signature hourglass silhouette, crafted in pleated chiffon and cut on the bias. Satin ribbons in peony pink and baby blue. Cinched-waist blazers and sweeping capes. Three dresses with bows set askew on strapless necklines, the fabric curving to a second bow at the opposite hem. Tricorn hats over gathered white tops. The show closed with a standing ovation. Social media responded within minutes: "Dior is back." The front row: Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Rosalía, Jennifer Lawrence, Rosamund Pike, Anya Taylor-Joy. The collection arrived in stores on January 2, 2026.

The Dior Bow Bag is the defining new accessory of the Anderson era — a bag whose silhouette is the bow itself, produced through a secret process developed in the Dior atelier to maintain a sharp, defined contour while preserving the leather's suppleness. The closure is invisible. The chain strap features metal links interwoven with miniature bows. Available in small and medium in smooth, metallic, and crinkled leather — black, dreamy pink, tourmaline, buttercup yellow, hermitage, latte white. The bow is not applied to the bag. The bag is the bow. Anderson told WWD: "I wanted something young and casual, and a bit fun." Delphine Arnault, CEO of Christian Dior Couture, described the shared ambition as "elevating the accessories category through engineering and material innovation." The Bow Bag arrived as one of the most discussed new bag shapes of the year — and a confirmation that Anderson's Dior would be organized around formal invention rather than decorative evolution.

The Lady Dior — named for Princess Diana, who received one from Bernadette Chirac in 1995 — is reimagined under Anderson as a series of lucky charms. The Buttercup version is scattered with three-dimensional buttercups in bright yellow, accented with a small bee — one of Dior's founding emblems, Christian Dior having been famously superstitious about good fortune, lily of the valley, and the four-leaf clover. The Clover version is embroidered with four-leaf clovers — the same symbol, but now carrying a second charge: Anderson's Irish heritage. A tiny red ladybug is tucked into the design. The classic D-I-O-R charms remain. Two different superstitions — Christian Dior's and Jonathan Anderson's — converge on the same miniature bag, held together by the shared conviction that certain things must be made with the intention of bringing good luck. The Lady Dior campaign was photographed by David Sims, with Mia Goth, Greta Lee, and Mikey Madison.

The Dior Book Tote — introduced under Maria Grazia Chiuri, one of the decade's most commercially successful bag formats — is reborn under Anderson as a work of literary reference. The spring 2026 versions are embroidered to resemble the covers of specific books: the Dior by Dior autobiography, the memoir Christian Dior wrote and published in 1956, rendered in soft cream with a pink ribbon; Madame Bovary; Bonjour Tristesse; Bram Stoker's Dracula. Anderson's passion for literature — a constant reference in his work at Loewe, where he incorporated blue-chip artworks and cultural references into every collection — finds in the Book Tote its most natural vehicle: a bag already shaped like a book, now carrying the cover of one. The decision to open with Dior by Dior was not incidental. It is the house's autobiography. Anderson is writing the next chapter.

Maria Grazia Chiuri — the first woman to lead Dior in its history — held the creative direction for nine years, from 2016 to 2025. Her opening gesture, in her very first collection, was a white T-shirt printed with the words "We Should All Be Feminists" — a phrase borrowed from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay. Over nine seasons, she embedded feminist art collaborations into every runway show, working with Judy Chicago (whose The Dinner Party she had encountered at the Brooklyn Museum on her first visit to New York at age 18), Claire Fontaine, Robert Wilson, and others. She showed in Brooklyn in April 2024 — the fulfillment of an eight-year ambition — with a pre-fall collection drawing from Dior New York, the 1948 Manhattan atelier that had brought Christian Dior's designs to the US for the first time. Her final collection, Cruise 2026 at the Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome, was her autobiography.

Christian Dior visited New York for the first time shortly after the New Look triumph and was struck by what he described in his 1957 autobiography as the city's "raw energy" and the "boyish flair" of its fashion, so different from the "trim elegance of Parisian style." He found the contrast generative rather than threatening. In 1948, Dior opened a Manhattan atelier — Dior New York — to bring his designs to the American market through a local diffusion line. Marlene Dietrich, who had become an American citizen while remaining deeply connected to Paris and to Dior, wore his clothes both on screen and in her private life; her "celebrated boyish allure" inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri's Fall 2024 collection, shown in Brooklyn, dominated by black and masculine codes reappropriated by women. The relationship between Dior and New York is not a market relationship. It is a creative one — the conversation between the two cities' different ideas of what a woman should look like.