In a dark news cycle, joy sells. With his second major womenswear show for Dior, the Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson put a pin in the soul-searching of his first season and plunged gleefully for the springtime-in-Paris jugular. For the opening show of Paris fashion week, Dior offered a seductive vision of Monet’s waterlilies, walks in the Tuileries gardens, and the Eiffel Tower glittering in the sunshine.
Anderson, a keen art collector who moved to Paris for the Dior role last year, has been looking at Seurat’s romantic paintings of ordinary Parisians at leisure, as well as Monet. A promenade across the octagonal pond of the Tuileries was built as a catwalk, and the Sunday sailboats upgraded for the occasion into giant lily pads with vibrant blooms. Dollhouse-sized pairs of classic French green park chairs were sent out as whimsical invitations.
