The words “fashion and film collaboration” usually mean a premiere dress, a campaign face or some merchandise nobody desperately needed. Dior and A24 are trying something bigger.
The two have signed a two-year partnership spanning film, theatre, fashion and live events, anchored at A24’s Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. Dior will be its premier partner.
Jonathan Anderson, Sabrina Carpenter, Josh O’Connor and Drew Starkey introduced the project in slightly wonky co-branded T-shirts. Cute, but the T-shirts are not really the story.
The interesting part is a major fashion house putting money and attention behind a 100-year-old off-Broadway theatre—and treating culture as more than a backdrop for selling clothes.
The partnership opened with a one-night performance by Justin Vivian Bond, who first met Anderson at Central Saint Martins more than two decades ago. That personal connection gives the whole thing a pulse that a conventional brand tie-in would not have.
We do not yet know exactly what the next two years will produce. Good. The possibility is the appeal.
Verdict: if luxury wants cultural relevance, helping culture happen is a very good place to start.
Read the announcement ↗