‘Gunnera Leaf’ de William Amor pour DIOR Haute Couture SS 2026 by Jonathan Anderson – Paris
There’s something of a primary shelter in this unfurled leaf.
An architecture of freshness, a plant palm open above the world.
The entire structure – stem, ribs, capillary network – was created from brass. Salvaged brass, collected in 2023 when the Weber Métaux company closed, in the 3ᵉ arrondissement of Paris, mixed with fragments of William Amor’s old projects. This metal, once utilitarian, here becomes a sensitive material. Each rib is engraved, stretched and branched with such precision that it seems to have grown naturally. Silver brazing unites these fragments into a living skeleton, then polishing reveals a metallic skin where light circulates like sap.
On this precious framework, color emerges.
Painted and patinated with a brush, the surface of the metal shades, blurs and warms. Subtle, almost organic gradations appear – from the deep green to the muted reds of the stem – to give the unsettling illusion of a truer-than-life plant, as if the metal remembered it was once a leaf.
The rest of the limb is the result of another rescue: that of tarlatan.
These textile fragments, recovered in 2020 from the workshops of René Tazé, art intaglio printer, already carry within them a memory of ink and gesture. Here, they are transfigured. Bath-dyed, impregnated with pigments, ennobled by a colored coating, they become surface, flesh, breath.
Twenty-six patterns were cut, adjusted and applied with almost anatomical precision to each rib intersection, like so many recomposed cells.
The edge of the leaf is a work of extreme patience:
frayed thread by thread, stretched with pliers, then tinted with vibrant reds.
It thus recaptures the irregular, crenellated lace of the Gunnera – this living fringe that captures light and air.
Hot-iron embossing then inscribes into the textile the furrows, reliefs and texture so particular to this plant: an almost animal skin, known as “toad skin”, where the material seems to quiver.
Last but not least, the soft, translucent spines are made of spun silicone and applied one by one with a syringe. Tinted red, they punctuate the surface, recalling the chromatic tensions of the stem and edges.
They are both defense and ornament, detail and signature.
Recomposed in this way, the Gunnera leaf becomes more than a reproduction. It is a transmutation. An object of passage, where waste becomes precious, where industrial and artisanal memory merge into a plant-based imagination.
Under this haute couture umbrella, the artist doesn’t copy nature: he extends it.
At the crossroads of naturalist, goldsmith and chemist, William Amor fashions a body of work in which each gesture repairs, assembles and reveals.
And in this leaf-ornament offered as a refuge, a silent promise persists:
that of a beauty born of metamorphosis, fragile and sovereign.
Photo credit ©Dior – 2026
In January 2026, at the Musée Rodin, Jonathan Anderson presents his first Haute Couture show for DIOR. A show imagined by the house’s new artistic director as a bucolic, poetic stroll through an English garden.
For this collection, DIOR asked visual artist William to create an ultra-realistic giant leaf sculpture of Gunnera in his signature style. For the show, the sculpture was worn like a romantic parasol.
The sculpture took around 400 hours to complete.
- 150 hours to create the leaf structure, stem and entire rib network in brass.
- It took 250 hours to assemble the piece, assembling materials, textures and cosmetics.
- 50 hours for detailing and finishing.
PROJECT TEAM
William Amor, Valérie Henry, Rémy Jarnoux et Marion Le Bellec.
SEEDS OF MEANING
Additional material:
Silicone
MAKING OFF
Date:
24 March 2026
