Christian Dior is travelling back to 1949 for the holidays, but Robert Pattinson, Rihanna, and a rather talkative chair are coming along for the ride.
The French fashion house has unveiled 'Christian Dior's Night in Color', a new hand-drawn animated short created for the festive season. Directed by French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet under the creative direction of Jonathan Anderson, the story begins on a quiet winter night at 30 Avenue Montaigne before one phone call sends the house into action.
On the other end of the line is Marlene Dietrich, and she needs a new dress. Of course, Christian Dior answers in couture.
Robert Pattinson Narrates Dior's Winter Tale
Pattinson serves as narrator for the short, but Dior has assembled an entire cast to bring its illustrated world to life. Louis Garrel voices Christian Dior, while Camille Cottin steps into the role of Dietrich. LaKeith Stanfield plays Ron the Director, and Nine d'Urso, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, and Greta Lee voice The Bees, a nod to the nickname associated with the workers of Dior's ateliers.
Josh O'Connor has perhaps the most unexpected assignment of the lot: The Chair. Then there is Rihanna, whose role feels rather fitting for the woman who has spent plenty of time shining in Dior herself. She voices The Lucky Star.
The unusual cast has already caught attention online. One commenter asked whether Pattinson could 'please narrate everything in general', while another couldn't agree more on the casting of the We Found Love singer: 'Rihanna our lucky star.'
'Night in Color' Goes Back to 1949
The year behind the story has some lore in its pages. Dietrich had a longstanding connection to Dior, and the house has previously revisited her famous insistence on wearing the designer's creations while making Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright.
'No Dior, no Dietrich!' she reportedly told the director.
The new film takes that relationship and gives it an animated holiday spin. After Dietrich calls for a dress, Christian Dior and his busy Bees get to work, eventually producing a glittering creation inspired by the house's 1949 Junon gown. Truly one of the Maison's most legendary pieces to date.
Even the way the short was made looks backwards before moving forwards. The animation was drawn entirely by hand using techniques dating to the 1940s, fitting marvellously with a story set during the same era.
Chomet is certainly familiar with what a pencil can do that modern technology couldn't touch with a million pixels. His 2003 film The Triplets of Belleville earned 2 Academy Award nominations, including one for Animated Feature Film.
For viewers already tired of wondering whether every suspiciously smooth image was generated by artificial intelligence, Dior brings things back to basics.
'I'm so happy to see more brands hiring animators instead of AI,' one Instagram user wrote. Another simply celebrated seeing 'real animators getting a chance to shine with their hand drawn work'.
Dior will release 'Christian Dior's Night in Color' online on Wednesday, with its illustrated cast taking the house from a snowy night in 1949 into the 2026 holiday season.
Seventy-seven winters later, the lights are back on at 30 Avenue Montaigne, the snow is falling, and Christian Dior has some iconic Christmas magic to draw before sunrise.
