Themes of glamour, hazard and seduction ran by the A/W 2025 collections – from Saint Laurent’s thigh-high leather-based boots to ‘fur’ coats, animal prints and sculpted tailoring. As seen within the September 2025 Fashion Situation of Wallpaper* (on newsstands now), we seize the season’s sensual new temper in 12 objects and appears for women and men.
Energy journey (prime left)
Tropes of glamour – from bullet bras and brooches to pink lips and fur coats – have been riffed on by designers in sudden and imaginative methods. At Alaïa, towering shearling ‘fur’ coats looped round fashions’ necklines and tassels jutted from skirt waistlines, whereas huge corsages sat flush to the neck. ‘The message is about singularity, individuality, the everlasting power and resilience of girls, empowering them by their garments,’ mentioned artistic director Pieter Mulier. ‘That impressed Azzedine, and it all the time evokes me – the power of magnificence.’
Thigh excessive (prime proper)
An imagined assembly between Robert Mapplethorpe and Yves Saint Laurent sparked Anthony Vaccarello’s menswear assortment for Saint Laurent. Clashing the carnal wishes of Mapplethorpe’s pictures with the ‘bookish’ classicism of Yves Saint Laurent’s Parisian uniform, it was outlined by thigh-grazing leather-based boots worn with Nineteen Eighties-inspired tailoring. Referencing a ‘Robin Hood’ boot created by Yves Saint Laurent in 1963, they have been maybe the season’s most talked-about accent, discovering followers in Alexander Skarsgård and Pedro Pascal.
Buffer zone
Coat, £780; scarf, value on request, each by Sportmax (enquire at sportmax.com). Gloves, £340, by Paula Rowan (enquire paularowan.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
The proliferation of fake fur – or fur reproductions in cleverly manipulated feathers or dyed shearling – recommended a want for defense, whether or not towards the weather or one thing extra existential. Enveloping ‘yeti’ coats have been most interesting of their hefty weight and measurement, from these at Dolce & Gabbana – evoking the thrown-on model of off-duty fashions – to Sportmax’s shaggy monochromatic overcoats. ‘Hyper-reinvention – the place the strange turns into extraordinary,’ mentioned the Italian label of the gathering.
Swan music
Jacket, £4,600; prime, £840; masks, value on request, all by Dior Males (enquire at dior.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
After a five-year tenure, Kim Jones held his closing act as inventive director of Dior menswear amid a dramatic monochromatic mişe-en-scene that noticed fashions descend an infinite optic white staircase and onto the runway – a play on the staircase on the home’s Avenue Montaigne deal with. Silhouettes took inspiration from the streamlined proportions of Christian Dior’s 1954 H-Line couture assortment, whereas ribbon-like eye masks have been tied on the again with a bow, evoking these discovered on the bottles of the Miss Dior perfume.
Magic eye
Bag, value on request, by Chanel (enquire at chanel.com) Underwear, £55 (accessible wolford.com); tights, £35, each by Wolford (accessible wolford.com).‘Diesis’ couch, value on request, by Antonio Citterio and Paolo Nava, for B&B Italia (accessible store.mohd.it)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
Awaiting the arrival of incoming artistic director Matthieu Blazy, Chanel has used latest collections to bolster its most distinctive codes. For A/W 2025, it did so by a group designed to ‘alter perceptions’, reimagining Chanel emblems utilizing methods of the attention – whether or not trompe l’oeil bows or a sequence of surreal equipment blown up in measurement or shrunk into miniature. These included an enormous model of its signature pochette, a tiny quilted purse, and this Debtors-style string of pearls, certainly one of which flips open to make a bag.
Darkish arts
Coat, £6,010; trousers, £995, each by Ferragamo (enquire at ferragamo.com). Sneakers, £770, by Lanvin (enquire at lanvin.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
‘A menacing magnificence’ is how Anthony Vaccarello outlined the temper of his menswear assortment for Saint Laurent, with its sense of hazard, inflected with hints of kink. There was additionally Prada’s patchworked leather-based tailoring and uncooked slices of shearling ‘fur’; Lemaire’s leather-based foulards, worn as headscarves; and elongated trench coats and leather-based gloves at Ferragamo. The latter was offered by Maximilian Davis on a darkened runway strewn with pink roses, a nod to the sensual staging of Pina Bausch’s Nelken, carried out by the Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Wild ones
Coat, £4,210, by Lanvin (enquire at lanvin.com/collections/men-ready-to-wear-coats-and-jackets). Underwear, £20, by CDLP (accessible careofcarl.co.uk)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
Designers embraced a wilder facet this season, with Duran Lantink’s assortment sporting a heady collage of zebra, leopard and tiger prints, some painted immediately on to the fashions’ our bodies, whereas Peter Copping’s Lanvin debut – an ode to the louche Twenties eveningwear of founder Jeanne Lanvin – featured outsized leopard-print coats with a smooth, shaggy end. At Sacai, Chitose Abe appeared in direction of extra fantastical realms, conjuring up the monsters of Maurice Sendak’s The place the Wild Issues Are with brightly colored prospers of dyed shearling.
Hat trick
Hat, £1,165; prime (accessible loropiana.com), £1,800, each by Loro Piana (enquire at loropiana.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
The hat is having one thing of a renaissance, showing in numerous guises on latest runways. Signalling a transfer past the informal spirit of a cap or beanie, designers as a substitute delighted within the nostalgic magnificence of extra traditional millinery. At Sportmax, it was one thing between a pillbox and a panama, at Duran Lantink, there have been amped-up variations of the trapper and woolly hats in his signature sculpted kind, whereas Loro Piana featured a play on the cloche hat, a method synonymous with the liberatory costume codes of the Twenties.
Pump motion
Sneakers, £1,060, by Prada (accessible prada.com). Tights, £35, by Wolford (accessible wolford.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
The pointed, heeled pump has been an archetype of femininity since its rise to prominence within the Thirties, a second that coincided with the rising affect of Hollywood. Interpretations of the pump appeared all through the collections, although it was these at Prada that proved most intriguing, that includes raw-cut edges as a riposte to perfection. Co-creative administrators Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons famous it was a part of an interrogation of femininity. ‘We requested ourselves, what’s female magnificence?’ mentioned Mrs Prada. ‘It’s a fixed questioning.’
Carry all
Bag, £23,500, by Hermès (enquire hermes.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
This was the season of the XXL bag, good for transporting the requirements of latest life. Hermès supplied up a brand new tackle its ‘Haut à Courroies’ bag, which, in its roominess, can double as a weekend bag or aircraft carry-on. Stripped of the same old {hardware}, the assorted straps and clasps have been changed with ghostly embossing, as if a hint of what was there had been left behind. It got here as a part of a group that inventive director Véronique Nichanian described as ‘a play between back and front, in and out, seen and invisible’.
Physique work
High, £825 (accessible stellamccartney.com); shirt, £650 (enquire at stellamccartney.com); skirt, £1,590, all by Stella McCartney (enquire at stellamccartney.com). Sneakers, £1,060, by Prada (accessible prada.com). Tights, £35, by Wolford (accessible wolford.com)
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
Stella McCartney staged her present on the ‘Stellacorp’ HQ – a surreal simulacrum of an workplace, full with spinning chairs and desks, which was ultimately invaded by underwear-clad pole dancers. Titled ‘Laptop computer to Lapdance’, playful juxtapositions ran by the gathering, which noticed the company uniform, from pencil skirts to blouses, shot by with a frisson of perversity. Collections from Zits Studios, Balenciaga and All-In offered comparable riffs on workplace apparel, the latter impressed by Mike Nichols’ 1988 film Working Lady.
Take form
Jacket; shirt; trousers, all value on request, by Wooyoungmi (enquire at wooyoungmi.com). Tie, stylist’s personal
(Picture credit score: Images by Antoine and Charlie, vogue by Jason Hughes)
Males’s tailoring this season was sculpted in silhouette, with a give attention to the waist. Kim Jones’ remaining assortment for Dior Males included a tuxedo-style riff on Christian Dior’s Bar jacket, whereas at Wooyoungmi, a reconsideration of eveningwear noticed a carved waistline on a jacket adorned with 3D-appliqué flowers. Madame Woo, who staged the present within the opulent surrounds of Karl Lagerfeld’s former residence on Rue de l’Université, mentioned she was serious about ‘concepts of correct dressing’, reimagining formalwear in louche and sensual model.
Fashions: Hollie-Might Saker at Fashions 1, Tristan Watkins at Menace Fashions. Casting: Dean Goodman. Hair: Anna Chapman at Julian Watson utilizing Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Kirstin Piggott at Julian Watson utilizing Charlotte Tilbury. Manicure: Hayley Evans-Smith at Saint Luke utilizing Byredo. Interiors: Olly Mason. Digi tech: Laura Heckford. Images assistants: Tom Porter, Ed Philips. Style assistant: Lucy Proctor. Interiors coordinator: Archie Thomson. Manufacturing: Victoria Watkins at Birdhouse. Manufacturing assistant: Melina Grace Bryant. Retouching: Aly Studio.
A model of this story seems within the September 2025 Fashion Situation of Wallpaper*, accessible in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* at the moment
Supply: Wallpaper
