Even before he staged his first runway show for the house of Dior, Jonathan Anderson announced on Tuesday that football great Kylian Mbappé is a new Dior ambassador.
“Kylian Mbappé is the voice of a generation and an inspiration to many people in the world of sport and beyond,” wrote Anderson on his Instagram account. The post featured a short video of the French footballer tying a red and blue club tie onto a blue striped shirt, paired with a Dior dove gray two-button herringbone jacket. At the end, Mbappé utters a single word — “Dior.”
“These films show the charm and charisma that make him the perfect ambassador for this house. Get ready for Dior Summer 2026 June 27 livestreaming from 2 p.m. CEST,” added Anderson, who is legendary for teasing his design intentions on social media.
Previous posts have included silver-gray frogs and pigs pricked with ornate needles, surrounded by thread, ribbons, and buttons. Other posts have included everyone from Lee Radziwill to Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“As I started out on this journey, I kept returning to these photographs of Basquiat and Radziwill who are both, for me, the epitome of style,” noted the Northern Irish-born Anderson, whose prior post featured a canary yellow tote that read Dracula by Bram Stoker. Stoker is another Irishman, by the way.
Mbappé is a World Cup-winning striker who plays club football for the game’s most storied team, Real Madrid.
In Mbappé’s debut campaign with Real Madrid last season, the French captain scored 43 goals in 56 matches, winning the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup along the way — as well as the European Golden Boot as Europe’s top scorer — but missed out on the La Liga title by four points and was knocked out of the Champions League by Arsenal in the quarterfinals. By Real’s standards, it was an unusually unsuccessful season, where Real won none of the last four competitions it entered.
Mbappé is currently in the United States with Real, one of 32 teams contesting an inaugural new format of the Club World Cup. However, he was taken to hospital last week suffering from “acute gastroenteritis” before returning to the team’s training complex in Palm Beach, Florida. Mbappé neither played nor was on the bench for Real’s most recent game, a 6-0 demolition of Mexican side Pachuca on Sunday.
Anderson’s debut for Dior is by far the most anticipated show in the Paris menswear runway season, which starts today, June 24, and ends Sunday, June 29.
On June 2, Dior officially appointed Anderson as creative director of women’s, men’s, and haute couture collections, marking the first time in the brand’s history that one designer has handled all three disciplines since the passing of its founder, Christian Dior.
He succeeds the duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Kim Jones, who respectively handled couture/womenswear and menswear separately.
The selection of Mbappé is the latest linkup by a major LVMH brand with a top-rank football player. Mbappé’s Real teammate, English attacker Jude Bellingham, is a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton.
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