Writing for Business of Fashion about John Galliano’s jaw-dropping to many, two-year contract with Zara, Cathaleen Chen describes the purists weeping:

For purists, it’s jarring to see the man who transformed Dior into a fever dream in the aughts and more recently rehabilitated Margiela’s avant-garde identity set up shop at a fast fashion giant. Some are mourning the loss of exclusivity, treating the move as a surrender of prestige.

Anne of Carversville has a deep relationship with Gemini at this point. It criss-crosses several core initiatives, making itself shockingly valuable to Anne herself. Mistakes are an absolute rarity — like when G estimated LVMH annual volume at $400 billion recently, and she had to correct it.

If you are writing about cross-currents and connecting thoughts, ideas and events, Gemini 3’s level of nuanced thinking and capacity for extended dialogue is absolutely stunning. We love it. When we write “extended dialogue’, we are talking 2-3 hrs and often.

On Sunday, not only did G give us the rundown on Dior and Chanel in Shanghai. We engaged in extended dialogue on why Jonathan Anderson — who we lovingly call the new Sun King [in his own mind and while looking at himself in the mirror ] — created a Galliano-scene in Paris that may “bite him in the butt” in Shanghai.

Anderson says he’s out of the bumpy waters at Dior; and everything new is working. He might want to muzzle that statement, because wishing doesn’t eliminate information that’s coming to AOC saying exactly the opposite. Sky surveillance over Shanghai counts every person walking into Dior and Chanel; and which doors they are using. Then it tracks who walks out with a small shopping bag — probably a trinket and not a $30,000 piece of jewelry, which would be handled differently. The sky eyes get positively intense tracking VIPs who walk out of a Dior store — or a Chanel store — with a chauffeur coming for her many large bags being carried by Dior or Chanel staff for the handoff.

In today’s world, all this information is available. AOC has piles of it across Asia, and we are confident that significant numbers of Dior’s VICs are in a holding pattern, as key resale metrics connected to Dior are dropping. Chanel is in the opposite situation, in which every critical metric is rising.

Galliano x Zara

Today, the new John Galliano x Zara strategy in China is not being discussed as the total “surrender of prestige” nearly as often as this question. Why should younger people — and some older ones as well,— be buying Dior “trinkets” from a creative director they really don’t understand at all, when Galliano for Zara is an option?

Anderson is perceived as coldly-intellectual in his approach to Dior, the scientist in his laboratory.

AOC has been in over 20 convos on Dior and Chanel since the January 2026 haute couture shows. The critique of Anderson centers on the designer’s cold brilliance — maybe, it’s even true, from China’s perspective. What is growing is

Anderson’s brilliance doesn’t matter to them, because Galliano will always carry the day against Anderson in a discussion about Dior in China. This is the case for in-the-know people today.

In China, Zara has Been Trading Up

People commenting from Paris on the Dior risk in China may not understand the many changes Zara has executed in recent years. From their perspective, it’s folly to suggest to them that the Galliano x Zara alliance could cause trouble for Dior.

Is this digging in a case of fashion’s most intense voices lacking an informed perspective?

Zara has closed many smaller stores in China, while upgrading the top tier stores to be more gallery-like in their atmosphere and design. These premium Zara stores are designed for China’s high-rate of tech-savvy users. In 2019 the Zara store count in China was 570; today it’s roughly 135.

When the new Sun King says that Galliano is the greatest source of inspiration in his approach at Dior, China buyers are asking why buy Dior when Galliano is the prize. Why not buy Galliano repurposing Zara clothing at similar prices to a Dior “trinket”.

Sustainability is very important to China’s customers of every age and the Galliano x Zara project delivers. Anderson has given the marriage his blessing by his actions, if not words. There’s no turning back now.

In many ways, Zara is turning Anderson’s own PR machine against him. And it’s the most massive PR machine we remember in decades. Young Chinese shoppers aren’t seduced. They don’t just want clothes; they want "theatricality" and "storytelling." Galliano provides the intellectual "clout" that makes a Zara purchase feel like a curated collector's item and never a disposable fast-fashion fix.

Isn’t that how Jonathan Anderson fancies his own work? As a “cabinet of curiosities”?

Gemini Says Dior Is Heading Toward a Loss of Intellectual Sovereignty in China

An Image from Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Spring 2026 Look Book Images by Grace Ahlbom

The real ‘downside’ to the Anderson-Galliano friendship for Dior is Intellectual Sovereignty. Dior is paying the ‘Sun King’s’ salary, but the ‘Sun King's’ mentor is giving his best archival ‘re-authoring’ to the competitor who is faster, leaner, and currently beating Dior in China on multiple measures.

The Identity Slippage: In a market as sharp as China's, if the creative source code is shared, the luxury ‘premium’ must be justified by something else—usually scarcity or structural innovation. Dior is flooding the market with ‘stuff’ — 43% of new SKUs are priced under $1000.

Meanwhile, Zara is moving into ‘art gallery-like’ scarcity.

In this case, it’s Zara’s potential ability to dilute the Dior brand via Galliano, at the same time VICs are not certain what Anderson’s Dior is really about. If you are a young professional where every $$$ counts, why not spend $500-600 on Galliano v Zara? It has such a great story behind it. And with the extra money, you can help fund a new Chanel bag to wear with your custom-collection created by Galliano from the Zara archives.

AOC is paraphrasing the argument being waged.

The biggest risk of the Anderson-Galliano "deep friendship" is that it makes Dior look nostalgic rather than pioneering. In a high-tech, ‘gallery-vibe’ Zara China, nostalgia is a dying currency. If the ‘New Sun King’ is just a curator of the ‘Old Sun King's’ greatest hits, the Chinese VIC will see right through the gold leaf. Think of a certain president’s office just peppered with gold leaf and photos of himself.

AOC struggles to believe that Bernard Arnault knew about Anderson’s intention to invite John Galliano to his first Haute Couture show in January — until it was too late to turn back. And Delphine Arnault should have thought twice about the idea, although she is so openly-devoted to Anderson for over a decade, there’s a good chance that she was fine with her Sun King’s intentions.

Our comments have nothing to do with Galliano himself. It’s the fudiciary responsibility of Delphine Arnault to consider that exactly what happened with John Galliano and Zara could happen. And it could be a different luxury brand that the very-talented Galliano could work for tomorrow.

Meanwhile Anderson is fawning all over Galliano, almost as if he wants the designer’s fairy dust for himself. Jonathan Anderson is on a mission to be “the best living designer” and a “constructor of meaning,” turning his work into a system of immense value as the most celebrated and globally-regarded designer ever.

AOC doesn’t mean to be obnoxious, but we’re not as swept away with Anderson at Dior idolatry, as an entire industry.

KAUST، King Abdullah University Of Science And Technology Saudi Arabia via Unsplash

‘Less I, More We’ Does Not Apply

Anderson’s persona is very different from Matthieu Blazy’s relationships at Chanel. At this stage of the race — which is early — Blazy is winning the race for talent, attachment to clients and makers, and imagination. Fashion writers rarely notice the symbolism in the Chanel collections. We do. Think mycelium.

The new phrase “Less I, More We” does not interest Anderson. The client is everything to Blazy — along with the makers. Anderson sees himself as the Sun King, and just like Donald J Trump, the world revolves around him. He’s alpha to the max and has the same ‘underdog’ description of himself that Trump uses.

Bernard Arnault himself is cautiously optimistic and he did signal that there was new life in China early in 2026. His vision is wise in understanding a Dior strategy that is far from cemented.

In fact, we will make a proposal shortly that Mr. Arnault, Delphine Arnault and Pietro Beccari fire up a jet and head to Dallas-Ft. Worth and then onto Shanghai. It’s time to talk to VICs.

One hesitates to yell ‘FIRE’, when LVMH has far better intelligence than we do. But Bernard Arnault needs high-quality conversation in small groups who are tagged as VICs, but haven’t been buying so much new Dior in recent months.

AOC’s Different Perspective, Based on Experience

What Anne does have that most fashion writers do not is a decade of job experience very similar to Anderson’s, but at Victoria’s Secret Stores. Her track record of excellence at VS is 2x the compounded annual growth rate of Anderson at LOEWE. The way the math works is that, in most cases, the higher the revenue level, the more difficult it is to generate a 25+% CAGR.

It’s believed that Anderson left LOEWE with annual revenues about $2 billion. Anne left Victoria’s Secret at $6.6 billion. Anderson’s CAGR over a decade was about 13%. Her financials were 25%, as stated. Anderson’s JW Anderson has never turned a profit. For the first time in over a decade, JW Anderson had a paper profit in 2025 with LVMH. It was a financial accounting construction, not profit as we consider it in our own work responsibilities.

All this hero worship is great for Anderson. But it’s not impressive to an outsider.

That training gives AOC a different window into analysis from most fashion websites. We analyze Dior from the perspective of clients in China, followed by clients in the United States.

The fashion capital of the world — Paris — is barely on our business radar. It’s what emerges from Paris headed worldwide that dominates our thinking.

For now, we are like China’s VICs — in a holding pattern. But we’re digging as deeply as possible to understand what is going on at Dior. We must remember that Chanel is more like Louis Vuitton in size and scale. No one should expect Dior’s performance to equal Chanel’s in hard numbers. Blazy’s report card is 2x the size of Anderson’s..

If you’re new to Anne of Carversville, welcome aboard. We definitely do things differently here. Falling in line is not our idea of role play.