Dior has made a great many mistakes in communicating the appointment of the brand’s new designer. Here is another one.

Yesterday, WWD published an interview with Dior CEO Delphine Arnault about the appointment of Jonathan Anderson as the brand’s creative director. In the introduction to the interview — which is rare and important in terms of the signal it sends both to customers and to investors — there is the phrase:

I work with him almost every day, we talk a lot and he really impresses me.

Yet, in the photo below, Delphine Arnault is wearing a Dior jacket from Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Cruise 2023 collection. According to the caption, the photo was provided by the brand itself.

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What signal does it send?

• The image anchors the brand in the old creative era at the very moment Dior is trying to signal a new one;

• Words say “change” and “conviction”; visuals say “continuity” and “hesitation“;

• It exposes a lack of precision and internal alignment in a moment that should have been tightly controlled.

If Delphine Arnault, as both a client and a leader, is not ready to embody the new vision herself, is the customer?