Notes from the Spring-Summer 2025 Collections
Bare legs, optical illusions and distorted silhouettes were some of the recurring themes among the Spring-Summer 2025 collections presented during fashion month.
Images courtesy of Loewe
As another fashion month draws to a close, certain themes have emerged from among the Spring-Summer 2025 shows. From different cities and designers, these trends act as threads, connecting many of the collections.
Bare Legs
It appears the Fall/Winter 2023 no-trouser trend isn’t going anywhere. Both Dior and Prada presented swimwear, with the latter pairing a ’70s micro-short with colourful knits and webbed flats. Miu Miu showed micro bloomers that could easily pass as a chic adaptation of a boxer short, while Loewe declared no trousers at all, showing a series of structured mini dresses.
One-Legged Trousers
If baring your legs seems too daring, other designers proposed easing into the trend with a pair of one-legged trousers. At Coperni, it was a tailored cigarette leg; at Louis Vuitton, a draped trouser; at Courrèges, a culotte; and at Bottega Veneta, ruffles, tailored and pleated under skirts. One-legged trousers for all occasions!
Optical Illusions
Trompe l’oeil, an optical illusion which tricks the eye into seeing a 2D print as a 3D structure, was another common feature this season. First spotted in London at JW Anderson, with 2D fastenings on mini dresses, it recurred in Milan at Prada, with printed leather belts. In Paris, Celine created an optical illusion by crafting a tweed fabric from thousands of tiny beads sewn into suiting.
Turning Back Time
A return to vintage styles emerged across several brands including Valentino, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent. Chemena Kamali’s second Chloé collection took a modern view on a ’70s boho woman, who wears oversized sunglasses, billowy sleeved shirts and dresses, fringed jackets and bags and high-waisted, wide-legged jeans. Impressively, the team went as far as sun-fading, rinsing and wearing-in the fabrics, as if time had passed through the blue, yellow and pink clothing.
Valentino joined Chloé in the ’70s, mixing the billowy, seemingly weightless, flowy dresses of the time with drop waists and fur of the ’20s.
At Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent and Dries Van Noten, guests returned to the ’80s, where jacquard fabrics were out in full force. Saint Laurent went a step further, paying tribute to their founding father Yves through a series of oversized tailored suits.
Distorted Shapes
Hodakova, Loewe and JW Anderson pushed silhouettes to the extreme. LVMH Young Designer prize winner Ellen Hodakova Larsson delivered a masterclass in structural play, opening her show with suit trousers which rose up to cover the bottom half of the model’s face, moving down the body into a corseted, form-fitting dress.
Creative director Jonathan Anderson was certainly drawn to the idea of playfully manipulating structure and shape this season. At Loewe he presented shrunken mini dresses and skirts with hems that jutted out wide. Meanwhile, at JW Anderson, bulky knit dresses were also shrunken, while silk jackets and knit sweaters were expanded to oversized proportions.
“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.”
Ending on an obvious note, there were a lot of floral fabrics within the Spring/Summer 2025 lineup. At Prada, the staple summer dress was tweaked and manipulated from a basic floral slip into a structured masterpiece that seemed as if a light summer breeze was blowing through it. In Paris, long structured dresses in transparent floral fabrics opened the Loewe show. Flowers bloomed at Valentino on pencil skirts and billowy dresses. It was springtime at Miu Miu, with a floral motif on a simple cotton white dress. At Issey Miyake, dresses featured delicate prints of peony and ranunculus flowers. And at Celine, they appeared as 3D embellishments on short dresses.