The Paris runways continued the fashion world’s discussions and hyper-focus on wearability and realistic tailoring; that is to say, sure, you can wear it—but will you wear it? For fashion houses, the pinnacle of success right now is relevance, and that means creating those covetable items that don’t compromise on creativity, and are reached for over and over in the modern wardrobe.
A running theme of the female gaze permeated the collections, addressing the urgency of what women want to feel like while moving about their daily lives, rather than getting dressed to satisfy a male ideal. Some of the most impactful shows this week—Miu Miu, The Row, Givenchy, Sacai, Chloé— find their common denominator in having a woman at the helm. These shows were not about grandiose statements of femininity but about nuanced details, ones that are often indescribable but immediately felt when worn. These clothes possess the kind of traits that allow a garment to be picked off the rack repeatedly.
With TikTok all about right-leaning trends (trad-wives, quiet luxury, and clean girls), and President Trump abolishing any gender choice outside of male and female, gendered and conservative dressing has been thrust into the spotlight yet again. However, the shows continued to subvert the feminine-masculine spectrum with androgynous looks and ambiguous characters. And, even though multi-layers with high necks and statement collars were a persistent feature through the week, they served as more protective and female-forward rather than stitched-up and conservative. The same goes for the power shoulders and hourglass silhouettes; these proved how women can still embrace the female form, particularly in an office environment, while not falling under categories of male desire.
Elsewhere, the simple pleasure of dressing was at home in Paris. Chloé’s third show under Chemena Kamali was a bohemian dream where each piece could be styled with the next. Balenciaga by Demna, who usually touts his ideas of hyper-normality in his collections, decided to pare his offering right back to highly desirable and wearable essentials. Demna told press backstage, “Now is just to make great clothes for my customer, for someone who likes what I do and kind of relates to that aesthetic and who understands clothes through wearing them, not speculating about them.”
Overall, in terms of colour, the season was a dark one. Whether to reflect the uncertainty of the luxury economy, tariffs, or just the Parisian go-to, collections were overwhelmed with black in all it’s mysterious energy. Hermes, who normally plays with satisfying colour pairings, showed the majority of looks in black. Alexander McQueen, Dior, and Rick Owens were suitably sombre, Tom Ford played into black’s darkly sensual side, and Junya Watanabe poked and prodded at the signature shade of menace.
Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent was an exception to this rule. “To just push the silhouette in these saturated colors—it’s the most color I have ever done…,” Vaccarello told press backstage. The designer chose to omit any bags, new or old, from his show, just as The Row chose to leave out footwear entirely.
It was a big week for debuts, with Haider Ackermann for Tom Ford, Sarah Burton for Givenchy, and Julian Klausner for Dries Van Noten. All creative directors executed impressive new beginnings for the storied houses, with Ackerman leaning into the art of seduction, Klausner adding his eye to Dries’ signature prints and poetry, and Burton taking it right back to the beginning. All eyes will be on Mathieu Blazy’s first show for Chanel come September.
Now, to the trends. Here are the most talked-about looks, styles, and silhouettes from the busiest week in runway fashion.
Nosferatu necks
It’s not unusual for a film or TV series to have a choke-hold on fashion collections (think: Bridgerton, Succession, Barbie, anything by David Lynch) and this season—like we saw in London—Paris appeared to take it’s neck-nipping cues from the American Gothic Nosferatu. The Victorian-era ruff was a fixture at Dior and Alexander McQueen on peak-shouldered top coats, Rick Owens’ Dracu-collars carried over from its menswear collection, and Ann Demeluemeester’s rockstar swagger sported ruffles and blouses fastened at the neck. Aside from any vampiric references, the necklines of the collections have significantly been raised this season, with Saint Laurent spruiking exaggerated funnel-necks, mock-necks were present at the bohemian showings of Chloé and Zimmermann, and Chanel referenced Coco’s white-ruff signature atop a pair of black tweed looks.
Non-conforming characters
Miuccia Prada continues to lead the charge for creative, eclectic dressing that doesn’t miss a beat. With its messy, dressed-in-the-dark stamp spliced with the push and pull and good taste versus bad taste, the trick is making it seem undeniable; which is what Miu Miu does — and why it's the hottest ticket at fashion week. Stuck on Ms Prada’s efforts to un-trend the fashion cycle, several other houses and labels presented a series of singular looks that are intentionally uncopyable. Mismatched layers, backwards garments, awkward silhouettes, and uncomfortable colour pairings—shows from Louis Vuitton, Coperni, and Issey Miyake focused on day-to-day characters who dress from within their wardrobes (and somehow always get it right).
Trimmed tailoring
A lot of trend-identifying on fashion’s biggest runways often comes down to the shapes and silhouettes that have been phased out from prior seasons. Case in point: oversized tailoring is firmly on the out. Slick and razor-sharp suiting was best observed at Tom Ford, in traditional tuxedo black and in a variety of acid and pastel hues. Hermès took to a dark and lean silhouette with tightly fitted jackets and high-waisted slim trousers, while Courrèges offered after-hours tailoring in second-skin suit pants and mini skirts cut on the angle.
Biker perfection
The Perfecto jacket gets it’s FW25 dues; with all its zips and double-breasted compactness, the go-to outerwear for the motorcycle enthusiast or rebel without cause was re-energized all over the runways—as it was in New York. Hermès offered its equestrian-style biker in cropped quilting, Givenchy and Courrèges’s moto-dresses will be on the It-girl wishlist, Tom Ford leaned on the intensity of black to offer leathers that were rigid and intimidating, while Isabel Marant’s bikers had all the nonchalance of its signature Parisian attitude.
Shoulder on
Dramatic, exaggerated, rounded, and pointed shoulders aren’t going anywhere. Saint Laurent’s SS25 show seems to have caused a further ripple effect throughout the Paris collections, with the dynamic profile appearing in polo shirts, party dresses, and trench coats at Stella McCartney and purposefully padded at Tom Ford and Issey Miyake. Notably at GIvenchy, Sarah Burton’s power-shoulders emphasised a punchy hourglass silhouette that was anything but for the male gaze, while Chloé’s signature pussy-bow blouses found top heaviness to further elongate free-flowing silhouettes.
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