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At Jonathan Anderson’s sophomore couture collection for the house of Dior, the blazing Parisian sun was blocked by perfectly positioned palms that filled the Musée Rodin. Held in 30-degree Paris heat, the fluttering of fans held by guests like Alexa Chung, Sabrina Carpenter, Inde Navarette, and Josh O’Connor mimicked butterfly wings. Anderson was inspired by American sculptor Lynda Benglis for a couture collection featuring molten-metal looks and sculptural elements. Yet it was the presence of another American woman that was felt in the air and in the collection’s final softer moment.
Just days prior, news broke that Jonathan Anderson was the hand behind the celebrity wedding of the last two decades. Anderson created Taylor Swift’s bespoke couture wedding gown, also dressing groom Travis Kelce, in an as-yet-unveiled look. Given Swift and Anderson’s stature in culture, there is no doubt this cross-pollination of music and couture will go down in the sartorial pantheon of historic bridal moments. According to WWD, the announcement generated $15 million USD in media impact — and that is without an image of the actual gown.
Designed in high secrecy, the wedding dress is yet to be revealed, and for those eagerly reading into the collection for clues, there were Swiftian echoes in the presentation’s final look.
But back to the collection itself. An homage to Lynda Benglis, Anderson translated her muscular, spontaneous artistic practice into a textural wonderland. We saw metallic silver plissé gowns contorted into monumental bows — a nod to her Goliath sculpture — and fluid fabric treatments that rippled under the runway lights like molten metal being poured into a kiln. There was a sense of historic and cultural alchemy, too; Anderson cinched mini Lady Dior bags with fragments of 18th-century Indian chintz fabric and sent out bold, layered stone necklaces carved from green onyx and mother-of-pearl in Jaipur. He even playfully referenced Benglis’s infamous 1974 Artforum outrage with a holographic silhouette stamped onto a papery t-shirt dress, a look he dubbed ‘Mirage’.
Flowers and delicate fronds burst from the shoes, while an explosion of fringing and plissé details gave the collection a distinctly organic, untamed energy. Seven models wore sculptural bonnets in dark silver that resembled corrugated iron and whimsical gold leaf that looked entirely weightless. The collection featured many of Anderson’s signatures: a bar jacket trailing fringe, dreamlike silhouettes rich with movement, and audacious surprises like the enormous transparent fans attached to the front and backs of silky evening gowns. Benglis collaborated directly with the house on four new bags, including the Dior Cigale in metallic plissé and the Dior Bow.
Yet, as a surreal interior garden sprouted along the runway — with flowers unfurling from high heels and sprouting from fringed jackets — it became impossible for the eager fan not to draw an editorial parallel with another muse. The garden surroundings and high-spirited whimsy were distinctly Folklore, reminding us of the “lush secret garden” Swift reportedly created for guests inside Madison Square Garden. And as metallics gave way to lace in the presentation’s closing bridal moment, the audience found its ultimate Swiftian parallel in the figure of Ophelia.
On Swift’s most recent album, The Life of a Showgirl, she dedicated the opening track, ‘The Fate of Ophelia‘, to her husband Travis Kelce, even depicting herself as the Shakespearean heroine on the album artwork. Art history has always preferred Ophelia dressed in ivory. In Sir John Everett Millais’s Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece from 1851, model Elizabeth Siddal famously suffered hours in a cold bathtub in a waterlogged, embroidered gown to capture the tragic heroine’s ethereal suspension.
Later, Paul Albert Steck’s 1895 interpretation saw her sinking in a white column gown rendered weightless by the tide, while Friedrich Heyser’s 1900 portrait depicted a bereft heroine sprawling among wildflowers in luminous white silk.
It was this aqueous romanticism that reached a crescendo during the haute couture finale. The closing bridal look was a strapless pearl column gown, veiled in a canopy of hand-pleated chiffon, intricately embellished with white feather dandelions and embroidered cactus flowers. The model walked with her hair loose and trailing down her back, much like Ophelia by the lake.
Does this look give us an insight into what Swift’s bridal gown might look like? Anderson kept his cards close to his chest: ‘It was a big honour. But no, I can’t tell you anything about it. It will all come out in due course. It was a joy to work with her, and we became very good friends. It is an emotional thing, doing someone’s wedding.”
So, while we can’t say whether we’ve received a glimpse into Swift’s wedding look, fans of Dior have certainly had a glimpse into Anderson’s coalescing vision for the house.
The post Jonathan Anderson Summons Spirit Of Ophelia In A Dior Couture Bridal Moment appeared first on ELLE.
