Red carpet? More like a red flag. Jonathon Anderson’s Dior dress for Jessie Buckley was No Look

Jessie Buckley in Dior by Jonathan Anderson. Photo: jonathan anderson/Instagram

Jonathan Anderson just shared pictures of this Dior dress on Jessie Buckley, who wore a sheath of a gown to the Golden Globes Awards, in a baby blue so pointless that even a newborn would reject it. While she was not the worst-dressed, neither was she the best, which, unsurprisingly, is not what vogue.com thinks. The e-mag was certain that if there were to be an “official best dress category”, she “would surely be in the running”. There is a wicked entity at work here, and it is not going to tell Ms Buckley that she wore a sort of asymmetric fichu that emerged from a sliver of an off-the-shoulder sleeve, went over the bust, and cascaded past the hips to the floor, looking like a decommissioned ironing board cover. It was not just a superfluous double-faced fabric hanging there on her left side, but a hostile occupation.

Mr Anderson has dressed the Irish actress before, most recently at the Critics’ Choice Awards, where she wore a an outfit that lost the plot with proportion: a cream, halter-neck blouse, elongated to the hips and secured there with a massive pussy bow on each side that hung on because they had given up, followed by squat black pants that made a deflated soufflé looked like a triumph of volume. For the Golden Globes, Mr Anderson decided on something far more structured, but the asymmetry was a major problem: it was a klutz, with the grace of a folding field chair. In fact, the silhouette could have been a failed origami project—a crane fulfilling, mid-fold, a lifelong dream to be a red-carpet dress. It is a different take on red carpet glamour, for sure. Or, delusional exultation of geometry and girth.

For the Golden Globes, Mr Anderson decided on something far more structured, but the asymmetry was a major klutz, offering the grace of a folding field chair

Ms Buckley’s Dior can be described by another ‘D’ word: dreadful. Or deplorable. For a Dior (some say “custom”. Even if she just didn’t pick it from the store?), it was ill-fitted, poorly made, and terribly finished. Close-ups showed dimpled double-ended darts; enraged, puckered seams; and docile, unpressed folds. There were visible flaws. A leak that not all is smooth in the Dior atelier? The maison’s reputation rests on flawless execution, which influencers love to call “craftsmanship”. But a gown with visible fit-and-finish issues undermines that legacy. There is also the fabric: Why the silk brocade that looked like a polyester cousin from People’s Park? It appears to lack pedigree. The exact extraction of offensive and flammable.

Who could have agreed to allowing the gown to draw scrutiny on the red carpet? In fashion, every crimson walkway outing is a calculated act of brand theater. Mr Anderson is well aware of that. He has been at it since last October, before showing his first Dior womenswear collection. But every actress strutted in Dior just looked like they have no choice, but to surrender to the wonkiness that the designer has adopted and reared into grown-up defiance. Besides, who is talking about the possible undermining of the Dior legacy anyway. Jonathan Anderson clearly prioritised concept over polish, putting out deliberate imperfections as part of his larger strategy to reposition Dior as daring and disruptive. Oh, two more ‘D’ words. While we are at it, why not deplorable? Or dross? Definitely dud!