Masculinity Is 'Such a Blurred Thing'

Jonathan Anderson doesn't just design clothes—he creates characters. Characters who represent a multifaceted range of masculinity and the many ways men can dress (and be) in 2025. As the new creative director of Dior, how will he shape the future of menswear?

- BY SAMUEL HINE PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATHANIEL GOLDBERG

On a hot summer afternoon in a makeshift museum on the grounds of the Hôtel National des Invalides in Paris, about 600 people waited patiently for the Dior Men's show to begin. Donatella Versace took a photo with Roger Federer. While an elite slice of the celebrity and fashion establishments sat shoulder to shoulder in the room, over a million people were watching on the livestream. The outsize attention was testament to the fact that this was the Super Bowl of fashion shows for the spring/summer 2026 season—the event that all of June’s Paris Fashion Week had been building toward. For months, June 27 had been circled on the calendar in bright red Sharpie as the day when Jonathan Anderson, the 41-year-old designer newly installed at the helm of Christian Dior, might jolt fashion out of the stupor caused by two years of slumping sales, listless collections and a seemingly endless merry-go-round of designer changes.

Earlier that morning, Anderson rubbed his eyes as he greeted a small group of press backstage for a preview. Anderson has the perpetual vibe of a graduate student during cramming season, weary but wired, with tousled boyish hair and bright blue eyes. He hadn't slept the night before. It wasn't nerves or preshow partying but Rihanna who kept him up: His notoriously nocturnal marquee guest showed up at 3am for her fitting. He appeared to be running on adrenaline and Marlboro Lights. “I feel good, I feel relaxed,” he said, not entirely unconvincingly.