It’s rare these days to watch a show and feel like you’re truly witnessing fashion history in the making, but that was undeniably the case with Jonathan Anderson‘s debut collection for Dior. The most anticipated fashion collection from any brand in recent memory, everyone wanted to see what Anderson was going to do with Dior. Would he go straight in with the weird and wacky designs of his Loewe? Or would he keep things more wearable like JW Anderson? How will this all translate through the historic codes of Dior?

Before we get to the clothes, let’s talk about the space. The show took place in a bright room inside the Hôtel des Invalides, with each guest sitting on a plain wooden cube. Naturally, there were A-listers – Rihanna, Sabrina Carpenter, Pharrell, Robert Pattinson – as well as a good cohort of Anderson’s boys: Josh O’Connor, Luca Guadagnino, Joe Alwyn and, the latest inductee, Sam Nivola. On top of the celebs, a group of Anderson’s fellow designers all sat together to watch his first show – Donatella Versace, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Simon Porte Jacquemus, Glenn Martens, Silvia Venturini Fendi and Stefano Pilati.

The room was modelled to bring to mind the velvet-lined interiors of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, one of the city’s main art galleries. On the wall hung two paintings by the French still-life artist Jean Siméon Chardin. In a reflection of the collection to come, Chardin worked during the height of the Rococo era in art, when artists longed to create the most luxurious and elaborate scenes on canvas, reflecting the decadent lives of their rich patrons. Chardin, however, dedicated his practice to depicting fairly common, household scenes. A maid washing clothes, or simply a plain platter of fruit. He was an artist who, during a time of great luxury and excess, stuck to the simple things.

That spirit of Chardin ran through Anderson’s debut collection. The first look was a Donegal tweed jacket with a cinched waist and exaggerated hips that directly referenced the New Look, the silhouette that Monsieur Dior had revolutionised the fashion world with back in 1947. On the bottom, a pair of 3/4 lengths were made of so much fabric that it was folded over several times and created a laminated effect. On foot, a pair of fisherman sandals were matched with white socks. There it was, our first full look at Jonathan Anderson’s Dior. Already, things were looking good.

What followed were 67 looks overall. There was an enjoyable mix of styling as, in some places, velvet dress coats were paired with denim jeans and woven sandals, and light pyjama shirts were tucked into tracksuit trousers. Very quickly – all the looks marched out – we saw that Anderson was dipping into the vocabulary of the landed gentry. For years, designers have looked to the innate styles of Hooray Henrys and Sloane Rangers to inform their collections, but few have attempted what Anderson did here, to make this particular style look wearable to those outside of that milieu.

In a reflection of recent trends, there was a streak of dandyism through the collection too. There were buttoned-up waistcoat and ostentatious bow ties that looked straight out of Sense and Sensibility. Pair them with the aforementioned velvet dress coats and you have to presume that the most stylish man in history, Beau Brummell, was on the moodboard somewhere. In an extension of this, there were a few military drummer jackets that were gloriously Adam Ant.

A moment for the bags. In a classic bit of Anderson literalism, the Dior Book Tote were designed with book covers on them. Stoker’s Dracula, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, Capote’s In Cold Blood, amongst others all reflected Anderson’s personal literary taste and may finally be a reason for you to retire your shabby Daunt Books tote. Sheila Hicks re-imagined the Lady Dior, covering the whole thing in a barrage of linen ponytails.

After the parade of looks, each mixing Anderson’s classic motifs through a distinctly Dior lens, the final look was revealed: a classic grey suit. Not quite the same suit we saw Kylian Mbappé wearing in the collection’s teaser a few days ago, but definitely a relation. It was an interesting choice to end on, a collection’s final look often being one of the most out-there. But this is Dior and this suit was pure Dior elegance. It was simple, crisp and endlessly desirable. When was the last time anyone looked at a plain grey suit and thought, “I want that”? That was the success of Anderson’s first Dior collection. You just want to have it all.