The 2027 Dior Cruise Show
Gallery / 30 images
In an interview with Loïc Prigent earlier this year, Jonathan Anderson discussed the artistic references in his Dior Men’s Spring 2026 collection, saying he did not want it to be about art necessarily, but about “the environment of an institution”. On Wednesday, May 13, against the backdrop of the David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – one of LA’s premier art institutions – Anderson transported guests to Hollywood’s golden age of cinema to present his debut Dior Cruise collection.
It is worth noting that film and television have felt a little bleak in Los Angeles lately. With production moving elsewhere and local electoral campaigns making the entertainment business a central issue, the state of Hollywood has been on the city’s collective mind. How timely, then, for Anderson and Dior to stage a show in the heart of American entertainment, offering a moment of shared optimism. The 2027 Dior Cruise show was a spectacle, and there could hardly have been a better setting in which to showcase craft and performance.
Here’s what went down at Anderson’s very-LA Dior Cruise debut.
Dior Cruise 2027 reminded us of the synergy between the artistic institutions of cinema and fashion, through an orchestration that brought as much drama and haze as it did lighthearted imagination. Of course, it would not be Hollywood without an appearance from some of its brightest stars. The front row was occupied by on-screen icons Al Pacino, Macaulay Culkin, Leslie Mann and her daughter Maude Apatow, Tracee Ellis Ross, Miley Cyrus, Mikey Madison, Lauren Hutton and Greta Lee.
Sabrina Carpenter entered stage right just before the show began in a dreamy, buttercup yellow dress, gathered at the bodice and lined with rosettes. As the show commenced and the first model entered the winding runway, we saw that Miss Carpenter was, in fact, wearing the first look. A cinematic entrance!
The Geffen Galleries’ grey brutalist architecture and Dior’s stark seating were covered in a hazy layer of fog, creating a dreamlike setting where past and present seemed to blur. The show notes were written like a screenplay, pulling guests further into Anderson and Dior’s cinematic world. As models sat inside vintage Cadillacs along the runway, settling in for a “drive-thru” viewing experience, the show nodded to Hollywood’s past while introducing the future of Dior’s newest collection.
As Anderson himself has said, people come to Dior for fantasy and romance – and that is exactly what he delivered. Classic Dior grey appeared throughout the collection in wool coats and relaxed flannel, while trailing hems and textured fabrics brought movement and softness. Billowy dresses in blue and pink pastels, cinched and shaped with ribbon, moved across the runway alongside sweeping trench coats and floral-trimmed tassels. Glimmering capes, lush silks and pleated garments offered a refined take on glamour, while abstract shoes and bags added a playful, whimsical edge.
Two natural occurrences never cease to warm the hearts of native and transplant Angelenos alike at this time of year: jacaranda trees and California poppies in full bloom. Drawing on California’s beloved wildflowers as one of many inspirations, Anderson sent bursts of vibrant yellow and orange down the runway. In keeping with the fashion house’s affinity for florals, the 2027 Cruise collection offered various interpretations of the motif, from beaded blooms and enlarged rosettes to flower-covered heels.
The collection balanced the natural world – seen in ladybug, snail and bee-shaped clutches – with the surreal fantasy of cinema, from jewel-encrusted bags to fanciful headpieces by milliner Philip Treacy. Together, these details captured something of Los Angeles itself: a sprawling western city where casual ease and high glamour often sit side by side. Dior reflected that balance through distressed denim, deconstructed Bar jackets, button-downs with untamed collars, leather trousers, coats worn more for effect than weather, and lavish eveningwear.
Alongside the golden-age references that brought a dose of nostalgia to the show, Anderson also revisited Dior’s own history. Bags resembling the retro-coloured leather interiors of classic American cars made their way down the runway, including what appeared to be a nod to Galliano’s Cadillac Saddle Bag from Dior’s SS01 collection. Anderson also revisited the iconic newspaper print first introduced by Galliano in AW00.
Another key reference was Marlene Dietrich’s Dior Accacias jacket, which Anderson modernised through his own versions. He also included a striking red velvet dress, continuing Christian Dior’s tradition, as Anderson put it in the show notes, “simply to wake people up”.
When the glinting classic car keychain arrived with the show invitation, the 1963 Studebaker Avanti on display inside the Geffen Galleries immediately came to mind. Overlooking the show’s set was a section of the museum nodding to California’s rich classic car culture. Across the museum’s campus sits its neighbour, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, whose current exhibition pays homage to Marilyn Monroe, a golden Hollywood star often dressed by Dior in her heyday. Altogether, the wider setting felt neatly aligned with the themes of the collection.
Dior’s LA Cruise show marks another step in the fashion world’s slow but steady expansion west, bringing Los Angeles into focus as an American city worth centring in today’s global fashion conversation. The House of Dior Beverly Hills, the brand’s four-storey LA flagship on Rodeo Drive, opened its doors in early autumn last year. And it was in 1949 Hollywood that Marlene Dietrich famously declared, “No Dior, no Dietrich!” insisting that her character in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright could only wear the best. Immersed in the sartorial side of image-making, guests were reminded not only of the coastal city’s impact on fashion, but also of Dior’s longstanding relationship with Hollywood.
