Anya Taylor-Joy Caped up and Channeled Catherine Deneuve for Dior

“I love a cape I just do, for every occasion,” says Anya Taylor-Joy. “I don’t think it’s only a special occasion thing. If I could wear a cape every day I would.” Which is lucky, because Jonathan Anderson caped her up to sit on the front row of his debut Dior womenswear show at Paris Fashion Week.

“I was just really drawn to it, and immediately, I thought of Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—that was the inspiration for the hair as well!” adds the actor.

Taylor-Joy has long been a Dior lady, delighting in its most feminine silhouettes, shimmering and sheer fabrics, and bow-adorned gowns. With Anderson, those ladylike aesthetics and exquisite details look to continue: Taylor-Joy wore a houndstooth cape with an arpeggiating hem, over a cropped white shirt that sculpted around her ribs, an ultra-flared black mini-skirt, and pointed black stilettos. Her icy blonde hair was done by longtime hairstylist Gregory Russell, who created a half-up, half-down look, affixed with a singular black ribbon. Makeup artist Georgie Eisdell used Dior Beauty to create a bronze smoky eye, with a toffee brown lip, and pearly peach highlight.

“I really loved elements of the structure that Jonathan was putting forward,” Taylor-Joy said of the show, noting the more subversive, surprising elements that the new creative director brought to the elegant touchpoints of the house. “There was a veil that covered half the face, but instead of going from up to down, it went from down to up, and I thought that was really beautiful. There was a really great pair of jeans and a beautiful white capelet tied in a beautiful bow around the neck that I also coveted. And obviously the wing dress—that was gorgeous.”

Everyday life right now involves a lot of filming (her new movie Sacrifice—starring opposite Charli xcx, Chris Evans, and Salma Hayek Pinault—is forthcoming), so moments for dressing up are few and far between. “I am trying to make more of an effort in my down time, but I don’t know, I usually structure it around something I really want to wear and then I will build the outfit up from that,” Taylor-Joy says.

But when in Paris, she’ll become a flâneuse. “I love to walk around! I tend to walk around at odd times, so I can be a bit more of a ghost in the city,” she shares. “Less people see me that way, and it’s just magical when you see places that are usually very crowded, empty. There is such cinema to that. So yeah—I love to haunt Paris at nighttime!”

See more from one of fashion and cinema’s favorite ghosts as she got ready for the Dior spring 2026 show below.