The Identity Crisis of Fashion Giants: What’s Wrong With Chanel and Dior New Approach

Right before the Chanel show, I was thinking about what exactly is going wrong with the shows of the biggest brands, which have been playing musical chairs over the past year.

Take Dior, for example. Just the other day the brand announced yet another ambassador, and I’ve already lost count of how many there are. It feels like they’re trying to please everyone at once.

Or Chanel, which staged its show yesterday at a decommissioned subway station in New York. My internal resistance to the whole picture began even with the introductory video featuring A$AP Rocky and Margaret Qualley. It takes us to a small NY apartment, yet Margaret’s character is dressed head to toe in Chanel. Maybe it’s artistic fiction, but the sense of mismatch felt similar to that recent Dior childrenswear video. It seems as though both brands are trying to be relatable to everyone — but is that really what makes luxury fashion desirable?

Jonathan Anderson’s Spring 2026 collection for Dior consisted of 73 looks that are difficult to unite under one theme — it felt like an exercise in interpreting the archives across different periods. Looking at the endless ambassador appearances, I find myself asking what’s wrong with these looks. First: there are simply too many of them; scarcity sharpens focus. Second — and most important — Dior is about shape, cut, proportions. That is what defines the brand, at least according to the vision laid out by its founder. So how can you dress a key ambassador in a dress with such a flimsy corset, looking half-baked and unfinished? Attention to detail currently outweighs attention to cut, and at Dior I’m not looking for something “Loewe-esque,” where craftsmanship is the core of the design. Loewe can get away with a weaker silhouette — that’s not why you go there — but Dior cannot.

The Chanel collection shown yesterday is just as fragmented. And if Dior’s collection was simply a set of pieces without an overarching theme, Chanel’s felt like a set created by different designers. I saw hints of Alessandro Michele, a bit of Bottega Veneta, a touch of Proenza Schouler, a little Tom Ford (who, by the way, presented his brand’s SS2020 collection at this very same subway station), even a bit of Missoni. The strong looks — and there were some — were simply lost in the mix. Overall, there were quite a few interesting pieces individually — but they faded in the attempt to appeal to everyone. The leopard look with the little-eared hat and the Superman sweater were so flat that they’re barely worth commenting on.

I still think it’s too early to draw final conclusions about these appointments, but here’s what I believe:

• These collections contain a lot of ego and attempts to inject too much of the designers’ personal vision into fashion houses with long histories and loyal admirers of that history. Maybe this is a test of all their ideas to see which ones stick — the question is how much time they have for such tests.

• More does not mean better.

• In the race to please everyone, luxury loses the very feeling for which people buy it — the feeling of belonging.