Prada Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Launchmetrics Spotlight for The Impression
In an article written before the Democratic convention in August 2020, I referred to that time and year as “unprecedented.” Who would imagine it could get even more so? There is no question that this is a wild and chaotic time. Many designers want to reflect surrealism, strangeness, and craziness in their collections. I’ve even seen designs that resemble straitjackets.
It’s all about the mix, Brandon Maxwell, Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo courtesy of Brandon Maxwell
Amidst the chaos, there’s also a desire to maintain a sense of order and composure. Fashion is a tool to project a cool, calm, and collected image, instilling confidence and reassurance. Mixing things up does not have to result in a chaotic, messy, and confused look. It’s precisely the mix of high and low, day and night, boy and girl, couture and street, hard and soft, tailored and flou, vintage and modern) that keeps things interesting.
Saint Laurent Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Launchmetrics Spotlight for The Impression
This season, the interplay between masculine and feminine elements in fashion is particularly intriguing. Designs range from ultra-feminine to more androgynous, with many variations in between. This trend reflects a broader societal shift towards gender fluidity and equality, making it a significant theme in the fashion industry.
Akris Spring 2025, Photo Courtesy of Akris
In addition to sportswear, athleticwear (this was a no-brainer after the Olympics), and asymmetry, there is a proliferation of sheer, diaphanous clothes from New York to Paris (many are only boudoir-appropriate) I can’t count the number of times during fashion month I thought about the 1988 movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Don’t you wish our politicians were as transparent as some clothing on recent runways?
The last thing I want is to walk around in wispy, see-through clothing that exposes my body and my vulnerability. And as you know, they will invariably end up with the wrong people! The world isn’t just crazy and mixed up; it’s often frightening and dangerous. If anything, this is a great time to protect and cover up with chic, armor-like clothing.
Bally Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Umberto Fratini for Gorunway.com
I am currently drawn to the more dramatic and intense aspects of fashion. Black, in particular, has never looked as striking. Its deep hue is the perfect backdrop for highlighting razor-sharp tailoring, sculptural shapes, and striking silhouettes, adding a sense of mystery and allure to the designs.
Comme des Garcons Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Isadore Montag for Gorunway.com
Fashion is big business, but it’s sometimes amusing, if not downright absurd. Halloween is just weeks away. “Trick or Treat’ anyone? I appreciate the artistry of Rei Kawakubo, Anrealage, and Noir Kei Ninomiya, among others. Still, it’s often hard to look at some of these designs and not think about a specific episode on “I Love Lucy,” “Lucy Gets a Paris Gown,” which aired in 1956, a year before The New York Times heralded the appearance of the sack dress at Balenciaga and Givenchy.
Ethel and Lucy in the episode, Lucy Gets a Paris Gown, Photo Instagram
In the episode, Lucy and Ethel go to a Paris fashion show and naturally want designer outfits. However, Ricky and Fred are cheap, and the fashions are ridiculous. So, to play a trick on them, Ricky and Fred create their designer outfits out of burlap sacks with garbage bags as hats. They make them as ridiculous as possible and pretend designer Jacques Marcel creates them.
Lucy and Ethel wear them out and are seen by the tony Frenchman. When Ricky tells Lucy the truth, she runs home and burns her dress, only to walk by a shop window and see that Marcel has already copied it.
There’s always that element of The Emperor’s New Clothes in Fashion. We are programmed to hang on to particular designers’ every word. A Prada collection always has merit, but spring 2025 is not her best effort.
“Fashion has generated into a self-reverential game full of jokes and pastiches that amused the fashion community enormously and did nothing for the woman shopping and trying something to wear,” the late Grace Mirabella observed in her 1995 memoir, In And Out of Vogue.
Prada Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Photo by Launchmetrics Spotlight for The Impression
I get what Miuccia Prada (and Raf Simons) is going after this season, showing 49 different looks on 49 models. They are emphasizing the individual over trends, which is somewhat of a theme this season. I love the idea of spontaneity as if the models got hurriedly dressed in the dark, but it was too much all over the place.
Naturally, this theme carried over to the Miu Miu collection in Paris. Of course, when Miuccia took her bow, she herself was dressed in a beautifully tailored double-breasted red coat, narrow black trousers, and classic high-heeled pumps! Ever notice that designers never seem to wear the look they themselves are pushing?
Courreges Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Acielle for Style Du Monde
Among the collections that did not suffer from a lack of cohesiveness are Anthony Vaccarello’s outstanding spring show for Saint Laurent and Nicolas Di Felice’s sensual, sculptural, and tailored designs for Courreges, which were based on the unending movement of the Infinity circle. Di Felice keeps getting better and better.
“He’s (Jonathan Anderson) proven himself. He’s ambitious. He can use his talents more fully at a bigger house. As long as people in Paris are speculating about fashion’s musical chairs, I bet that Anderson is in line for Dior – Cathy Horyn, The Cut
Loewe Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo credit Getty Images
Jonathan Anderson’s designs are wacky, wonderful, and brilliantly conceived. Based on this collection, soon Jonathan is a perfect candidate to receive The Museum of FIT’s Artistry in Fashion Award in September 2025. Meanwhile, there are ongoing rumors that the ultra-talented designer has his sights set on something bigger in the near future. Ah, fashion’s never-ending musical chairs.
Speaking of fashion’s never-ending musical chairs, it was also reported that Chanel might announce its new Creative Director after its spring show on October 1st. Boy, oh boy, can they use a strong creative director?!?! FYI, so could Dries Van Noten.
Celine Spring Summer 2025, Photo credit rain-mag.com
Hedi Slimane’s concise vision for Celine, revealed in the film Un Été Français (A French Summer), pays homage to French singers and fashion icons Juliette Gréco and the late Francois Hardy. The short movie, with its quintessentially Parisian clothes, makes it hard not to instantly surmise that Hedi is headed to Chanel.
On Wednesday, after much speculation, Celine announced the departure of Hedi Slimane. The new Celine ready-to-wear design director is Michael Rider, effective in early 2025, and it’s a homecoming of sorts.
A graduate of Brown University, Rider spent four years as a senior designer at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière before joining Céline, where he spent nearly nine years with Phoebe Philo until her departure in 2017.
Is anyone surprised that Alessandro Michele looked more like a typical Alessandro Michele costume party than Valentino? Although I’ve got to hand it to Michele. The guy is nothing if not consistent, passionate, and inexhaustibly prolific, and his unapologetically decadent, vintage-inspired clothes didn’t resemble anything else this season. There were some good pieces, by the way.
Valentino Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Acielle for Style Du Monde
Some loved it, some hated it, some, including myself, are on the fence. Many of us already miss Pierpaolo Piccioli’s chic, grownup, and sophisticated modern vision for Valentino. Valentino’s loss is Fendi’s gain.
When I saw that Peter Do was showing in Paris not New York (on the last day, no less), I hoped it would be a case of saving the best for last. Unfortunately, Do has yet to recapture the magic of those first few collections and this might have not been the best idea.
Some like to complain that there aren’t any clothes to wear, but in reality, there are for grownups who want to look chic and urbane. I’m afraid I have to disagree with those who say the older woman is being ignored by fashion brands, but there’s no question that many designs this season are primarily geared toward the very young.
Chloe Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear, Photo by Carlo Scarpato for Gorunway.com
Take Chloe, for example. Vogue declared Chemena Kamali’s sheer pantaloons “The Next Big Thing.” I can assure you they will not be on this 75-year-old’s “must buy” list for spring. I am confident they won’t be on Kamala Harris’s. There was virtually nothing on this runway I could imagine Harris wearing, though that doesn’t mean there won’t be some tailored suits in the stores.
More Oy than Joy, Balenciaga Spring 2025, Photo by Giovanni Giannoni for WWD
Ever since Kamala began her presidential campaign, we can’t seem to escape the word “joy” in politics or fashion. Joy, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. I’m finding more “oy” than joy in more than a few cases. However, finding your own style is universally joyful. It is that sweet spot where you can cut through fashion and pick and choose what suits you. At its best, fashion enables us to tap into our greatest version at any moment.
One of the best articles I’ve read this past month is Cathy Horyn’s article, “How I Lost And Found My Style” https://www.thecut.com/article.
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