Jonathan Anderson Turns to Lynda Benglis for His Second Dior Couture Collection
At the Musée Rodin in Paris on Monday, Jonathan Anderson unveiled Dior’s Fall Winter 2026-27 Haute Couture Show with a clear sculptural reference point: the work of American artist Lynda Benglis (b. 1941). It was Anderson’s second haute couture collection for Dior, and his latest exercise in translating art-historical form into the language of dress.
Dior said the collection “responds” to Benglis’s practice, especially the way she transforms flat materials into three-dimensional works through knotting, pleating, and molding. That idea appeared throughout the runway in a gray shawl, a bronze-and-gold top, and a silver gown, each shaped by knotted details that formed an off-center bow. Several models also wore headpieces that echoed Benglis’s sculptures, while some handbags in the show were developed in collaboration with the artist, according to WWD.
The collection also drew on Benglis’s long connection to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, where she spent time and found imagery that informed her “Peacock” series from the 1970s. Dior pointed to the series’ bright floral and beaded embellishments as a source for the 24th and 30th looks, which featured a large fan decorated in a way that closely recalled Benglis’s Zanzidae, From the Peacock Series (1979).
Anderson’s interest in Benglis is not new. Three years ago, he cited her work for Loewe’s Spring/Summer 2024 show, where he also incorporated her sculptures into the runway presentation. The designer has described Benglis as “a genius,” praising the muscular quality of her forms and noting that wider recognition of her influence has only come in recent years.
That assessment fits Benglis’s place in postwar sculpture. Known for her poured latex works of the late 1960s and ’70s, as well as her later wall-hung pieces with taut knots, she helped expand what sculpture could look and feel like. Her most recent major exhibition paired her work with Alberto Giacometti at the Barbican Centre in London, running from January to May. In Paris, Anderson’s Dior show suggested that Benglis’s legacy remains unusually fertile — not as quotation, but as structure.
