PARIS (AP) — Dior ’s menswear show arrived with a stripped-back set and a loud signal of confidence: neon-yellow wigs that read like a flag of authority planted in the Paris runway, after a couple of runway wobbles from their new designer.
In an annex of the Rodin Museum lined with curtain fabric, Jonathan Anderson — the 41-year-old Northern Irish designer celebrated for turning Loewe into one of luxury’s most admired labels and now serving as Dior's creative director — pared the décor down to near-nothing.
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A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Models wear creations as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Models wear creations as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
On Wednesday, Anderson's clothes finally carried the argument.
The stakes were visible in the room: Robert Pattinson, Lewis Hamilton and SZA were among the VIPs packed in close.
Then came the refrain: As one person in the front row put it: “Dior is back. It's a good day for fashion.”
This show felt like authority.
Anderson’s Dior, at its weakest, has read like a montage of strong ideas still searching. Here, the principle was clear: tighten the story, sharpen the silhouettes, and ground the house in something firm.
The gender-bending came through, but it was not weightless.
It was anchored, literally, in masculine boots and small-heeled lace-ups.
It was a smart back-and-forth signature for the designer who garnered laudits at Loewe, and now seems to have found his groove again amid the heritage house's weighty legacy.
The strongest argument came in outerwear.
Coats were sublime — the collection’s backbone in cut and stance.
He riffed, lightly but knowingly, on Dior’s most guarded code: the Bar jacket and the New Look line.
The nod was subtle: an ever-so-faint curve at the hip, a hint of structure, a memory of the house’s postwar hourglass without the old ceremony.
Dior is one of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH’s flagship houses, a pillar of the group’s fashion-and-leather-goods engine at a moment when luxury demand has been under pressure.
Across the sector, the terrain has turned harsher: rival luxury group Kering has been battling a prolonged slump at Gucci, with results showing steep sales declines that have weighed on the group.
And in Paris this week, Kering’s biggest runway names are absent from the official menswear and couture schedules — leaving the spotlight, and the scrutiny, on LVMH’s tentpoles.
After Dior's first ever female designer Maria Grazia Chiuri ’s long run ended last year with increasingly mixed critical notices in some quarters, the company has placed an unusually large wager on Anderson — the first designer in Dior’s modern history to oversee women’s ready-to-wear, haute couture and menswear under a single creative hand.
Dior’s house notes cast the characters as modern-day flâneurs: an aristo-youth roaming Paris, jolted into new connections by couture history.
The brand pointed to Paul Poiret, a designer known for fluid forms and far-reaching references, and pitched the collection as contradiction made coherent: Dior formality with denim and parkas; tailoring with technical outerwear; old with new.
On the runway, those collisions worked best when treated as construction rather than mood.
Tailoring was slender and precise — elongated jackets, mercilessly shrunken blazers, tailcoats, cropped Bar jackets and lean trousers — while outerwear fused the pragmatic and the dramatic, with bombers flowing into brocade capes, balloon-back field jackets and cocooning coats.
The palette stayed somber, which only sharpened the punctuation marks: the shock of yellow hair, and glittering glam-rock epaulettes that suggested a designer in full command of his own drama.
Accessories reinforced the same strategy.
Lace-ups with small heels and loafers kept the body planted: blur the masculine-feminine line, but do not let the clothes drift.
The wigs shouted. The clothes did not need to.
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Models wear creations as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Models wear creations as part of the Dior Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Men's collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
NEW YORK (AP) — The active New York Mets acquired ace pitcher Freddy Peralta and right-hander Tobias Myers from Milwaukee on Wednesday night in a trade that sent two prized young players to the Brewers.
Milwaukee received pitcher Brandon Sproat and minor league infielder/outfielder Jett Williams. Both were rated among the game's top 100 prospects by Baseball America.
Peralta gives the new-look Mets a frontline starter after their rotation faltered in the second half of a hugely disappointing 2025 season. The move came hours after New York formally introduced free agent addition Bo Bichette at a Citi Field news conference, and one night after the team obtained talented center fielder Luis Robert Jr. in a trade with the Chicago White Sox.
“Acquiring Freddy adds another established starter to help lead our rotation,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said in a statement. “Throughout the offseason, we sought to complement our rotation with another front-end pitcher, and we’re thrilled we are able to bring Freddy to the Mets.”
Peralta went 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA in 33 starts last season, when he led the National League in wins and finished fifth in Cy Young Award voting. He struck out 204 batters in 176 2/3 innings and earned his second All-Star selection.
The 29-year-old Peralta hasn't been on the injured list since 2022, when the right-hander was sidelined by a strained lat and later elbow inflammation. He is set to make $8 million this season and can become a free agent following the World Series. He is the latest former Brewers player acquired by Stearns, who ran Milwaukee’s front office from 2015-23.
“He obviously knows the players well. Look, he and I have worked very well together for many, many years. I obviously care about him a lot," Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said. "Today’s his anniversary and I was at his wedding. We go back a long way. I think I might have ruined his anniversary dinner. Look, he’s a dear friend. Hopefully, again, these are the types of trades that work out for both guys.”
Myers, 27, was 9-6 with a 3.00 ERA in 25 starts and two relief appearances as a rookie in 2024 before going 1-2 with a 3.55 ERA in six starts and 16 relief outings last year as Milwaukee won its third consecutive division title and advanced to the NL Championship Series.
“Over the past two seasons, Tobias has become an extremely valuable major league pitcher,” Stearns said. “His ability to pitch out of both the rotation and bullpen allows him to help our team in multiple ways.”
Peralta's departure marks the third straight offseason in which the cost-conscious Brewers have traded a star pitcher entering the final year of his contract.
Two years ago, they dealt 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to Baltimore for infielder Joey Ortiz and left-hander DL Hall. Last winter, the Brewers sent two-time All-Star reliever Devin Williams to the New York Yankees for left-hander Nestor Cortes and third baseman Caleb Durbin.
“These decisions are always tough," Arnold said. "We loved having Freddy Peralta here and everything he meant to this franchise. I just had an emotional call with him.”
Burnes and Williams both spent just one season with the teams that acquired them from Milwaukee before signing elsewhere in free agency. Burnes agreed to a $210 million, six-year contract with Arizona before the 2025 season, and Williams signed a $51 million, three-year deal with the Mets last month.
Although the Brewers won’t have Peralta to anchor their rotation, they do bring back two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff, who accepted the team's $22,025,000 qualifying offer. Woodruff went 7-2 with a 3.20 ERA last year after missing the 2024 season with a shoulder injury.
Hard-throwing right-hander Jacob Misiorowski got called up last June and was quickly picked for the All-Star team as a rookie. He finished 5-3 with a 4.36 ERA and 87 strikeouts in 66 innings.
“We feel we have a really good core of starters to deal from,” Arnold said. “I still feel like we’ll have a very strong rotation.”
Arnold said Sproat and Williams will compete for spots on the opening-day roster.
The 25-year-old Sproat made his major league debut in September and went 0-2 with a 4.79 ERA in four starts for the Mets, who selected him in the second round of the 2023 amateur draft from the University of Florida. He was rated the fifth-best prospect in New York's system by MLB.com.
“He’s a guy we’ve liked going back to the draft. He’s major league ready. He’s going to compete for a spot in our rotation,” Arnold said. "This guy has incredible stuff. Very high octane, really good movement on his four-seamer and two-seamer. Really good secondary weapons and a really good changeup.”
The 5-foot-7 Williams, 22, batted .261 with 17 homers, 34 doubles and 52 RBIs in 130 games combined at Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Syracuse last year. He was drafted No. 14 overall by the Mets in 2022 out of high school in Texas and was their third-rated prospect, according to MLB.com.
“This kid’s a gamer. He’s not that big, but I can tell you he plays with a ton of heart and he’s got incredible tools,” Arnold said. "He’s one of the fastest players in the minor leagues. I think his versatility is something that’s going to fit very, very well for this team.”
Peralta is 70-42 with a 3.59 ERA and 1,153 strikeouts in 931 innings over eight major league seasons, all with Milwaukee. He joins a Mets rotation that also includes Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes, David Peterson, Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga.
Peralta ranks second in the majors with 40 wins since 2023. He and Dylan Cease are the only two pitchers with at least 200 strikeouts in each of the past three years.
To open space on their 40-man roster, the Mets designated right-hander Cooper Criswell for assignment.
AP Sports Writer Steve Megargee in Milwaukee and AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb
FILE - Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Freddy Peralta walks to the dugout after the top of the fifth inning in Game 2 of baseball's National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Oct. 14, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
David Stearns, President of Baseball Operations for the New York Mets, speaks during an introductory press conference for Bo Bichette, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
