Speaking alongside Arnault, Anderson noted that some luxury brands and shoppers had lost sight of the value of human touch in the high-fashion supply chain.
Dior, like other major luxury houses, has had suppliers caught up in a string of labour abuse scandals in Italy that have made the sector the subject of a Milanese prosecutor’s probe.
Italian officials closed the probe into Dior last year “without establishing any infringement” after the company agreed to remedies.
“The thing we have really struggled with in luxury today is what is the value of talented people making something — we don’t think about the hourly rate of the person embroidering the dress that might take up to three months,” said Anderson. “We have such a visceral reaction to luxury now . . . but if we don’t keep doing the embroidery, and we don’t keep having a couture atelier, then it will vanish.”
Anderson added he had underestimated the media scrutiny he would come under after he moved from his previous role at LVMH-owned Loewe and running his own namesake label, despite being warned by Arnault that there would be a shift.
“I became a meme,” he said referring to a photo of him smoking by the Seine in the run-up to his womenswear debut last autumn that went viral.
“I have only been there for a year, the product has only been in stores for four or five months,” he said. “But the internet world wants you to turn the business around and create a perfect collection tomorrow. Things need time. A designer needs time.”
Arnault said that Dior was her father’s favourite fashion house as it was the first he acquired in 1985.
Adrienne Klasa, Jo Ellison and Elizabeth Paton in Savelletri © 2026 The Financial Times.
This article originally appeared in The Financial Times.
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.