Louis Vuitton
“A homage to human beings,” is how Pharrell described his S/S25 Louis Vuitton men’s collection, which was unveiled in the grounds of UNESCO House in Paris. “It went from black, to dark brown, to brown, to light brown, to beige, a little bit of grey in there … and light beige, and then finally to white … ” the designer said, describing the chromatic shift that took place in the collection, which was rendered in a spectrum of different skin tones. Pharrell was wanting to celebrate the international community, which will shortly be descending upon the French capital for the Olympics. TS
Undercover
Jun Takahashi’s S/S25 “borderless” collection for Undercover was similarly exploring humanity – the show represented a plea for unity in our fractured world. If sparks of oddity were added through gold-nailed headpieces, mismatching coloured buttons, and fishnet veils, these differences were harmonised through a softness of draping and cut. Ornate beading and roughly cut skirts added gentle femininity to the menswear collection – a categorisation Takahashi thinks too should be without borders. But his vision was truly crystallised through the fantastical prints derived from his own paintings and those of Italian artist Robert Bosisio: ultimately, we all dream under the same sky. MR
Wales Bonner
For her S/S25 collection, titled Midnight Palms, Grace Wales Bonner took inspiration from Althea McNish, the Trinidad-born artist and designer who became the first Black-British textile designer to achieve international recognition. Infusing post-war fashion with a burst of colour and life, McNish’s prints featured plants and animals native to Trinidad, and were resurrected here along with nods to McNish’s own wardrobe. Elsewhere, the collection featured formal wear created with tailors Anderson & Sheppard and casual wear made in collaboration with adidas, demonstrating Bonner’s ability to design both elevated luxury fashion and street-ready clothes for the everyday. TS
Junya Watanabe
Forever deconstructing and then patchworking back together codes of dress, for S/S25 Junya Watanabe played with the timeless tuxedo. Presented on a red carpet that called to mind his groundbreaking 2015 Sapeurs collection, Watanabe punked and preened formal dress attire: immaculately cut wool evening jackets were patched with denim and tartan, dress shirts were roughly bibbed, and Canadian tuxedos seamed together from large swathes of off-cut denim. Each look was perfectly polished with glossy patent dress shoes or crisp white sneakers from his collaborations with Tricker’s and New Balance. MR
Dior
“I love his work and I wanted to take that idea of working with an artist and working through the Dior archives,” said Kim Jones of the South African ceramicist Hylton Nel, whom the designer enlisted to work on his S/S25 Dior Men show. With a clowder of giant ceramic cats by Nel sitting on the runway, Jones debuted a collection of modern, utility-led tailoring infused with playful patterns and ceramic fastenings by Nel, along with woven hats designed by Stephen Jones and made by artisans in South Africa. TS
Kiko Kostadinov
With the strange paradox of “the human fragility and innovation that co-exist in hospitals, clinics, laboratories” as a starting point, Kiko Kostadinov’s S/S25 collection struck the perfect tension between futuristic visions, hopes, dreams, and the common vulnerabilities that make us human (and catch up with us all eventually). If he revealed post-show backstage that the collection was put together in just two weeks, this was not at all evident: his unrivalled hand for pattern-cutting and eye for colour play came together in futuristic uniforms which coddled, protected yet propelled an optimistic wonderment for the future of humanity. MR
Rick Owens
Rick Owens may not have the budgets of the big houses like Dior and Louis Vuitton but that has never stood in his way. Season after season, his shows are the highlights of fashion month – spectacles in the truest sense of the word. In case you somehow missed it, his S/S25 show featured some 200 models and students forming a “white satin army of love”, as Owens put it, marching in procession through the Palais de Tokyo to the spine-tingling tune of Beethoven’s seventh symphony. “EXPRESSING OUR INDIVIDUALITY IS GREAT BUT SOMETIMES EXPRESSING OUR UNITY AND RELIANCE ON EACH OTHER IS A GOOD THING TO REMEMBER TOO … ,” Owens wrote, in his trademark capitals, in the show notes. “ESPECIALLY IN THE FACE OF THE PEAK INTOLERANCE WE ARE EXPERIENCING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW …” Here, it was hard not to be moved by the spectacle and to feel as if you were in the presence of a true artistic genius. TS
Hermès
Leather and beachwear would seem like a funny pairing if left to the hands of anyone other than Hermès’ Véronique Nichanian. “Lightness, peace, softness” embodied her perfected play between the tenacity of the house’s heritage material and the ease of beach-ready silhouettes. Sweatshirts and button-up shirts with removable neckties were elegantly crafted from soft lambskin; just-cropped trousers paired neatly with strappy leather sandals. Even the house’s signature Haut à Courroies bag, reimagined in denim, became a viable beach-ready option. MR
Comme des Garçons
As always, Comme’s show was devoid of a big set, a flashy cast or performance – it was simply a dark room with a lit runway, and spellbinding clothes. With multicoloured headpieces made from fused-together children’s hairclips, the collection consisted mainly of monochrome, deconstructed tailoring with a more-than-occasional flash of mint green and bubblegum pink. Fabric was ruched and ruffled, or else layered with scrunched-up fabric and covered over with tulle, creating bulky, almost bloated silhouettes. As always, Rei Kawakubo didn’t give much indication of her thinking behind the collection, leaving us only with one sentence as a clue: “I want to hope for some light,” she said, “even if very small.” TS
Homme Plissé Issey Miyake
Entitled Up, Up and Away, Issey Miyake’s S/S25 collection was, as the name suggests, windswept with natural movement. The signature pleating lends itself perfectly to such a technical and visual exploration of wind: a series of billowing coats with harness detailing (the design team went parachuting together as part of research) swelled and swayed fluently. Elsewhere, wind was painterly, brushed and blurred in a ‘Windswept Plaid’ textile which could be folded and unfolded like a kite. MR
Loewe
Apart from the clothes, obviously, the best thing about Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe shows is that he seems to invite the men from that TV show you’ve just binged. Be that Morgan Spector from The Gilded Age, Richard Gadd from Baby Reindeer, Leo Woodall from One Day or Kit Connor from Heartstopper. But back to the clothes – Peter Hujar’s photo of a stiletto formed the basis for this collection, which included a series of “razor looks” as Anderson himself described them, deft and exceedingly precise. Gold or monochrome feathers were fixed on the models’ heads, obscuring their faces and lending the show a surreal, and totally ethereal, beauty. TS
Amiri
With his house’s dress code cemented, Mike Amiri said backstage: “I want people to look at something and make them dream.” And what better way to encourage dreaming than reimagining the birth of cool à la Miles Davis? Styled by Another Man editor-in-chief Ellie Grace Cumming and set to a live soundtrack of jazz from British musician Yussef Dayes in the Jardin des Plantes, Amiri’s S/S25 collection eased the oversized, slouched proportions of his signature suiting with a soothing pastel and tonal colour scape which glistened dreamily, nostalgically with precise crystal embroidery. MR
Dries Van Noten
There were a lot of watery eyes at this show, Dries Van Noten’s last for his namesake brand. Staged in an enormous factory on the outskirts of Paris and attended by nigh on a thousand people (including multiple designers and fellow Antwerp Six alumni Ann Demeulemeester and Walter Van Beirendonck), the collection was unveiled on a catwalk gilded in silver leaf, which flicked up like actual leaves as models strode down it. But while this was the designer’s final collection, it wasn’t a ‘best of’, so to speak – it was fairly restrained and represented Dries simply doing what he does best: beautiful colours, prints and fabrics, including one particularly amazing pink silk, which was cut into a beautiful overcoat. At the end of the show, Dries took his bow to a standing ovation and rapturous applause, while a giant – and I really mean giant – disco ball was unveiled behind him. In a landscape of fashion dominated by hype, celebrity and social media presence, Dries’s presence as a purist – someone devoted solely and exclusively to the task of creating beautiful clothes – will be sorely missed. TS
Kenzo
After three years at the helm of Kenzo, Nigo presented his sixth collection around a gold-sanded circuit in Paris’ illustrious Palais Royal – just a stone’s throw from the brand’s headquarters and Kenzo Takada’s first shopfront. For the first time in his tenure, menswear and womenswear were presented back-to-back: a novel bamboo camouflage print which adorned trenches, blazers, pants transformed into a delicate floral iteration on scarf-skirts; meshed hoodies became crocheted tops. The whole was seamlessly rooted in Kenzo’s legacy for easy everyday dressing. MR
