Gossip is always the name of the game at Fashion Week, but this season, insider whispers in Paris reached a fever pitch.
Before the spring/summer ’25 shows started, designer chairs were on everyone’s lips. There were debuts (notably Alessandro Michele’s Valentino show), recent announcements (Sarah Burton going to Givenchy) and supposedly threatening news (Pierpaolo Piccioli going to Fendi? It depends on who you spoke to last). It was all overanalyzed over countless martinis in the dark den that is the Hotel Costes bar.
All the talk about the industry powerhouses also included Jonathan Anderson, the jewel in LVMH’s crown and the man who transformed Spanish label Loewe into a billion-pound behemoth. This season marked his tenth anniversary at the house, which rather than openly celebrate, he decided to approach with stylish restraint.
Ironically, despite the chatter around him, during his SS25 season he tried to answer the question: What happens when you take away all the noise? He presented his vision in the round, in a bleached white room across the canal at the Château de Vincennes. At the center was a small, centrally placed bird sculpture by Tracey Emin, and surrounding it, Anderson once again proved that the formula he has developed over the past decade at the company is exceptionally efficient and sets an example for other leading brands.
He is forensic in his approach. Take this season’s suits, with their custom, oversized jackets and trousers that bulge at the legs and come in chilly stone, black and navy blue. “That is actually a strange achievement, because I don’t think Loewe has been good at customization for a long time,” he said after the show. “We came up with a kind of signature. How do you make the suit your own? It’s about adjusting the attitude.” However, it was flowy, sculptural dresses that made the biggest impact on the catwalk, with Anderson giving his unusual treatment to the sedate floral spring-summer dress. Impressionist flowers were printed on delicate silk and bulged out in different directions using a thin warp weight system.
The intention was to reduce American antebellum crinoline dresses to “a thread line”. They’ll be a hit on the red carpet – proven by The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, who wore one to Business of Fashion’s lavish gala at the Shangri-La the following evening, where she explained they’re as light as a feather to carry (although somewhat impractical for tight spaces). A wearable note: Band T-shirts with Bach, Mozart and Van Gogh’s sunflowers were also great. His were made of feathers, but yours could be from Uniqlo next spring.
A surprise later came from another Irish designer, Seán McGirr, at McQueen. While its February debut was widely criticized, Saturday’s show felt like a challenging step forward. At the large École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, an impressive scene to behold. Tiles were smashed to create a silver, steel runway dug trench-style through the center of the hall. It provided a dramatic backdrop for a collection that, in true McQueen style, looked to the Celtic figure of the banshee for inspiration (something the late Lee McQueen did for his own Autumn/Winter 1994 collection). So points for originality – not much, although he explains: “It’s also a story I grew up with, so it feels very personal to me, something I remember my mother talking about in Ireland and the cry of this lonely , ominous figure describes. .”
And kudos are certainly deserved for a much higher set of looks, which opened with Elizabethan collar collars and wide, tailored jackets twisted to look clasped, and ended dramatically: a crystal banshee figure, from face to toe covered in georgette embroidered with chains and fine silver. The main takeaway was to now give up the fear of the classic McQueen style from the 1990s. You have seven months to track down a sparkling, gold blazer.
Other London brands to achieve decadent success included Victoria Beckham, always one to put on a show, but this season it felt like extra effort had been made. Probably because the camera crews for her upcoming Netflix documentary were present. A huge tent had been set up at the Château de Bagatelle. With Christmas lights draped above and sandwiched between towering buildings, it felt like a Saltburn-style party. She moved her collection into a conversation about “formality and nudity,” reading show notes, which meant a more daring selection than you might expect from VB. Sculptural, wrap-around tops appeared vacuum-packed to the body and were shaped into stiff flares, while tights were cut high on the hips (and were popular across the board this season; consider pairing with jeans in the warmer months), while suits had a third cut. away from them.
Stella McCartney helped close the season with a Monday morning show, before Coperni brought fashion to Disneyland. McCartney used this moment, set against the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, as an opportunity to continue her mission and call for a reduction in environmental destruction. The hats on the chairs read ‘About F***ing Time!’, and on the catwalk, ready-to-wear clothing was innovated with 91 percent conscious materials (think bags made from apple waste, fungi and sugar cane derivatives). A manifesto read by Helen Mirren kicked off proceedings, big boxy blazers proving the siren look in the office isn’t going anywhere – keep trying – but they were standout moments, including puffball mini dresses and tops in turquoise and beige, which she describes as ‘cloud knits’. ”, which puts a smile on faces.
And there were no frowns at Christian Louboutin’s dazzling display of campness, as he took over the enormous art deco Piscine Molitor and outfitted the French Olympic artistic swimming team in his new “Miss Z” red-bottomed shoes for a show that was completely different than that of Christian Louboutin. the others this season. As “firefighters” stripped off their poles and synchronized swimmers spun in heels, everyone forgot themselves for a moment.
But outside in the rain it was normal again. “Well, I heard John Galliano is going to Chanel,” someone bellowed. “Real!?” the scream came back.