In uncertain times, fashion tends to look backwards—the past is knowable. Patterns can be detected, and lessons extracted. “This worked the first time around!” This season, among the brands with the biggest businesses, that thinking seemed prevalent. Rather than pushing boundaries to uncomfortable extremes (where true innovation often lies), many opted to play it relatively safe.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some designers revisited the past to better chart a way forward. The ones who got it right share a kind of obsession with modernity: Instead of merely retreading familiar territory, they asked what can be taken from the past and made meaningful today. It’s not just about relevance but resonance—something more emotional, more urgent.
They approached silhouette and construction with real inventiveness, designing with clarity and a thoughtful focus on the relationship between wearer and garment. The results ran the gamut, from LOEWE’s compelling exercise in reduction to Hermès' simmering summer sensuality.
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VALENTINO
It was the most anticipated collection of the season: Alessandro Michele’s debut runway show at Valentino. From the get go, it was obvious the House had changed hands. The showspace itself was loaded with symbolism—dotted with furniture shrouded in dust covers like ghostly presences. The floor was a shattered mirror; the clothes they reflected were Valentino, but not like you knew it. Gone was Pierpaolo Piccioli’s light handed approach to markers of classical grandeur. Michele has cranked up the drama, the glamour, the fantasy. The designer resolutely stuck to his guns at Gucci, even as shoppers started to tire of maximalism. There was no reason to expect him to do a hard 180 here.
He had dived deep into the Valentino archives and cherry-picked elements from his favourite decades: the 60s, 70s and 80s. He emerged with plenty of Valentino signifiers—polka dots and bows and paisleys and that signature shade of red—but the way they were piled on and clashed was signature Michele. There were dresses of every variety—prom dresses, tea dresses, princess dresses, babydoll dresses—often with tiers of ruffles, or a ruffled collar at the very least. Everything was worn with a smorgasbord of accessories—lace gloves and stockings, giant hats, veils and turbans and fake fur stoles. Eveningwear was a delight, especially the sheer yellow chiffon gown worn over a white lace body stocking; and the mint cape-and-gown set, trimmed in faux fur and dripping in crystals. The boxy, ornately embroidered jackets were great non-gown options that were still dressy. The dressed down pieces sang as well, notably the blazer fastened with a bow and the pleated polka-dot bustier that were both worn with jeans.
Michele’s clothes have always been romantic. Here, they were more opulent but also more straight-up pretty—though the fact that this now feels like a familiar kind of beauty showed just how influential Michele was in widening the discourse around beauty during his Gucci tenure. It was a very subtle shift, but in the right direction. The embroideries and the craftsmanship were especially exquisite—a tantalising preview of what we can expect for Michele’s first couture collection in January.
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LOEWE
Jonathan Anderson started exploring the idea of reduction in his June men’s show and here, he has taken it even further. His spring/summer 2025 collection was all about stripping things down to their purest, most concise form—one shape, one item of clothing, one gesture. Anderson is celebrating 10 years at LOEWE—a herculean feat in this age. While this collection wasn't exactly a retrospective, it did revisit many of his most memorable concepts and presented them in even more direct, and therefore more impactful ways. There were voluminous crinoline dresses, so light they floated like jellyfish in water, worn with sneakers and penny loafers. There was fluid tailoring with slightly off-kilter proportions, and everyday, familiar garments reconsidered just so that they suddenly looked like the most exciting version of that item. For instance, the “concert merch” t-shirts—they depicted figures like Bach, Mozart and Chopin, and were crafted in feathers. Leather coats and jackets had their hems engineered to flip up. In counterpoint to the giant wafting dresses, there were babydoll dresses that literally looked like scaled-up toy clothes in bright crayon colours and incredible textures like mother-of-pearl. There’s been a lot of speculation about Anderson’s next move—this collection would make for a superb greatest-hits and goodbye collection.
Related article: The Runway Is Jonathan Anderson’s Laboratory
DIOR
Athleticism was still on Maria Grazia Chiuri’s mind—she tackled the theme in her June couture show, and she returned to it for her spring/summer 2025 ready-to-wear. It also carried echoes of her very first Dior collection with its reference to fencing. This time around, it was archery—underlined by the presence of Italian archer and artist SAGG Napoli in the show space, shooting arrows at a target while the models walked. Chiuri showed asymmetric bodysuits with one shoulder exposed, followed by tailoring cut in the same way. There were also softly draped dresses that were Chiuri’s modern update on Ancient Grecian peplos. They were worn with gladiator shoes and sandals. For her Dior logo of the season, she took an archival one from the 70s, slimmed it down and extended it to look like racing stripes. It looked good running down the sides of athletic mesh dresses, tunics and track pants. The sportier, tougher section of the show yielded some of the collection’s cooler looks, like the cargos and one-shoulder vests sporting loads of buckles and zippers, and the dresses that looked like deconstructed bomber jackets.
CHANEL
Guessing Virginie Viard’s replacement continues to be fashion’s favourite game but in the meantime, the Chanel codes are so strongly established by now that the design studio managed to power on just fine, reinterpreting those codes to create a consistent, cohesive lineup that will satisfy the brand’s loyal clients. First up, tweeds, which the studio team made light and fresh by rendering them in sweet, youthful colours. The quintessential tweed suit featured skirts that were cut short or with slits for easy movement. In some looks, the jacket was fashioned into bombers, worn with shorts and platform shoes. Otherwise, they were cut in clean, straight lines and layered over sheer chiffon. Windowpane checks and open-work knits echo the architecture of the Grand Palais (once again host to the Maison’s runway shows after a lengthy restoration funded by Chanel)—the latter being quite a feat of craft. In the middle of the Grand Palais was a giant birdcage that recalled the one from the Vanessa Paradis perfume commercial shot by Jean Paul Goude. The avian inspiration resulted in some of the collection’s high-flying moments, such as the bursts of bright feather prints, and the plumes—both real and the ones crafted from chiffon—that quivered delicately on capes, dresses and jackets.
LOUIS VUITTON
Nicolas Ghesquière is capping off celebrations of his 10th year at Louis Vuitton. The spring/summer 2025 collection he showed was an assertive reiteration of the singular aesthetic he has spent a decade establishing and honing for the Maison—one informed by both the Renaissance and Modernism, sci-fi sleekness and Eighties glamour. This season, he time travelled to the 18th-century for his opening jackets with their gargantuan puffed sleeves, nipped waists and flared hips. Only his were light and moved easily, and looked cool worn with bodysuits, men’s shirts and flat leather shoes. Equally interesting were the dropped-waist tops and dresses worn with capri-length shorts, as were the doll-like chiffon shifts studded with giant cabochons. Ghesquière ended on a high note with a trio of jackets featuring the works of painter Laurent Grasso, which looked effortless and expressive worn with shredded crystal skirts.
BALENCIAGA
This season’s Balenciaga collection was a commentary on desire. It was the first time that a Demna collection had sex as its text, and not the subtext. And it was sex and desire and the body seen through a very specific prism as well. Lindsay Lohan was in the front row; Britney Spears was on the soundtrack. A series of racy lingerie looks opened the show. But this is Demna. Of course things were not quite what they seemed. Those were full-coverage body stockings printed to look like thongs, stockings and garter belts on flesh. Next came pleated calf-length dresses with padded shoulders, long sleeves and pussybows. They looked utterly prim and proper from the front but their backs were completely sliced open, held together only by silky black ribbons loosely laced. Flashes of bare skin (cheeks included) peeked through with every step. Denim also got sexified. Jeans were cut so low on the hips it was a wonder they stayed up. Otherwise, they were slashed at the thigh to create the illusion of tiny hot pants and thigh-high “boots”. They were worn with denim, bomber and puffer jackets that have been cut to look like Cristobal’s cocoon coats. Other new silhouettes Demna explored included collars that crept up so high they became face shields, and the finale looks with their wide, imposing 2D shapes—majestic and monastic at once.
MIU MIU
The term might have only been gaining social media traction this past couple of seasons, but the ‘Miu Miu girl’ has been fully formed for decades. Miuccia Prada’s spring/summer 2025 collection situated the brand’s successes of the recent past within the entire Miu Miu oeuvre. All the things that have long fascinated Prada were here—the recontextualised uniforms and archetypes; the cool, slightly kooky minimalism of her 90s era; the pointedly overt girlishness she subverted in the 2010s; the clashing 70s carpet prints she loves. The show opened with a youthful cotton shift in white—the very picture of innocence, save for the sliced-open back. It was one of those seemingly simple, instinctive, gestural effects that Prada just excels at and which immediately added a frisson to the proceedings. Next came tank tops and sweatshirts draped and layered to look like offhandedly put-together bustier tops. Some of these were worn with gym shorts cut so high on the thigh they were basically high-waisted briefs. The look sure to send the It-girl cohort into a tizzy were the cut-out bodysuits paired with low-slung pleated leather skirts and belly chains. On the runways, the previous decade’s reigning It-girls, Alexa Chung and Cara Delevingne strutted their stuff—a potent reminder that Miu Miu has always been that girl.
HERMÈS
This had to be Nadège Vanhee’s sexiest collection for Hermès yet. While sex has also percolated on other runways, this was the most sophisticated expression of it this season. It was a master class on how the Hermès woman does sheer dressing. The collection was essentially about the lightness and warmth of summer, which got her thinking about sensuality—things that don’t just look good, but feel amazing on the skin. Vanhee’s solution was sheer mesh, cut into easy, athletic silhouettes worn with the lightest of leathers. Some of the mesh trousers had zippers running down their entire sides, allowing the wearer to open them up and change their shape. In maxi-skirt form, it looked smashing paired with a paper-thin leather bomber jacket. The mesh also worked well as cropped shirts worn with long, lean skirts. One look that struck the polished-casual balance especially deftly was a leather bomber with a train, thrown over a mesh bralette and high-waist briefs. Vanhee’s palette was also one of the season’s most quietly striking—a sea of gorgeous, nuanced neutrals (save for a streak of hot pink looks) that evoked the natural landscape in all its richness and depth.