IT'S DEEPER THAN CLOTHES

Reflecting on the theme of intimacy, Alessandro Michele took Valentino to a glamorous and simultaneously underground, rave-dipped public toilet, setting his show to a mix of Lana Del Rey’s “Gods & Monsters.” Speaking on the design, Michele said: “I imagined… a counter-place that neutralizes and suspends the dualism between inside and outside, between what is intimate and what is exposed, between the personal and the collective, between what remains private and what is meant to be shared, between depth and surface.”

It set the tone for a collection that left nowhere to hide. The details in the clothes were as meticulous as one would expect from Michele; characters of the night flooded in red light felt apt for the occasion, but there was a more profound message underlying this design. The space is “free from the codification of norms, proudly political because it has the potential to subvert any rigid binary classification,” continued Michele.

Models made the public toilet their private sanctuary. Not one knew the other was there, or any of the onlookers, a set-up carrying voyeuristic undertones in its own right. But in a political climate where bodies, genders, and toilets are policed, scrutinized, dehumanized, and eradicated, Michele captured the one thing we all share: a craving for closeness, disregarding the interests of anyone other than oneself in a moment of indulgence and independence, free from judgement.

Not all shows have a political message—some are just fantastic moments. Nicolas Di Felice’s Courrèges celebrated with confetti, as thousands of pieces of colored paper flew within their own leafblower box. Models walked through the center and out the other side as it fluttered around them.

The intensity grew for the finale, turning the power up to 11 and creating fanfare like nothing we’d yet seen. It’s commendable what a white box room can do for a show—how a designer can interpret it and make it into a memory, invoking the nostalgia of childhood festivities.

A good show will pull on your emotions, an even better one will push you to feel something. Courrèges makes a case for finding fun in fashion again.

Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada, a dynamic duo in pulling off an unforgettable fashion show, have proven there’s more to a runway than clothes. Working with AMO, the research and design arm of OMA, the Depositio of Fondazione Prada was transformed into a scaffolding-clad, Catherine Martin carpet-laden display of juxtaposition.

Echoing the dichotomy of their clothes—soft faux fur coats stiffened by plastic coatings, skirts sculptured with wire—Simons and Mrs. Prada presented a set that was designed to be met with contemplation. Why are we sitting in scaffolding, under a red light, against a lush, deep-pile carpet? Because the conflicts of interest here, emulated by the studious notes of their clothing, make the onlooker uneasy.

Prada is a brand of intellect. Its clothes are a commentary on the modern world and the woman who lives in it. This was the Prada Woman’s world, and she ruled it, overthrowing all masculine nuance with her rawness, her liberation of perfect imperfection, her recontextualized take on norms. In Prada’s own words, it’s “reflective of the multiplicity of femininity, a further questioning of its determination.”

Less is more at Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu. Yellow moiré enveloped the grandeur of the Palais d’Iéna, emphasizing beauty in its most effortless form. The collection, likewise, was mature—older, wiser, more considered and knowing of oneself. It was confident; it was a collection by a woman, for women. Per Miu Miu, it was “shaped as an evaluation of the feminine. It is a reflection of and upon the meaning of women, expressed through clothes, that provokes discussion and thought.”

The set didn’t take away from this notion—of championing how women want to dress for themselves. And the seats: little wooden seats, sans-legs, just suspended on stadium risers wrapped in that same yellow moiré? We were spectators in this woman’s world.

But digging into those chairs more, you find they were not as simple as they appeared at first. “[The lack of legs] becomes another bold and unmistakable statement in its direct simplicity,” explained the show notes. With Miu Miu, it’s never straightforward. It’s provocation—and something about those chairs spoke to what this Miu Miu show was all about. This was not simplistic, but a complex study of femininity in a modern age. It’s a metaphor: A chair without legs is a society without women.

Jonathan Anderson’s inimitable tenure at Loewe has officially come to an end. In lieu of a runway show, the house presented its Fall/Winter 2025 collection at the beautifully preserved 18th-century Parisian paradise, Hôtel de Maisons.

It was a fitting tribute to the life and work of Anderson, whose time at Loewe has transformed it from a struggling leather brand to a fully-fledged house renowned for some of the last decade’s most important pieces of clothing (and cultural moments). Hôtel de Maisons’s grandeur is unfathomable, and yet Anderson’s work felt grounded and at home in the palatial piece of Parisian history. If his work can match, at times overshadow, what stories the walls tell, then it is undeniable Anderson is a master of his craft.

The collection is inspired by a “scrapbook of memorabilia and ideas,” but unlike most scrapbooks, this show was curated to the nth degree. It was like walking through Anderson’s mind; a cluttering of ideas pieced together in an eclectic mansion, directly commenting on the eclecticism of its artist.

“Sensuality is the feeling of beauty.” That’s what Haider Ackermann, the new Creative Director of Tom Ford, said about the house he has just adopted. His show—slick with sex appeal and indebted to both Tom Ford’s lineage and Antwerp’s counterculture, in which Ackermann came up—was just right.

Ford, a designer whose legacy has come full circle in recent years, was reimagined by Ackermann under a dim light, backed by mirrors (designed by an anonymous female artist) that looked steamed up.

But it wasn’t sex on the nose. It was unadulterated and sophisticated; laid bare in its raw authenticity, this backdrop felt poised for a collection that was androgynous, swathed in leather, tight to the body. It was an ode to the night before, a foggy memory. In Ackermann’s own words, it was “the morning after all that’s unnecessary has been left behind. What remains is feelings, impressions and lips bleeding red that have been kissed for the whole night.”

Seán McGirr’s McQueen is one of the most anticipated shows season after season, and Fall/Winter 2025’s Victorian drama only proved he’s the designer that can keep this house’s incredible history living on.

Tom Scutt had designed a skewed mirror walkway from which the models could descend. A portal of sorts opened into the grand hall seating the selected onlookers, as models wearing grand gowns, intricately jeweled face masks, Philip Treacy-designed hats (a brilliant appointment, mind you), and lots of ruffles, book-pleated collars, heritage lace, and a mixture of the three walked the hallowed hall.

What McQueen offered here was something that played with your senses. The lighting was dark, then dramatically bright. The score was intensely arpeggiated. The sound of the heels hitting the floor? Tantalizing.

All the while, this Victorian edge was met with modernity, speaking volumes on McGirr’s work for the house he’s cleverly making his home.

Maria Grazia Chiuri and the American artist and director Robert Wilson worked on Dior’s latest mindbending showset. Described as “a living theater in which the models evolve in a choreography of five hypnotic acts,” including details ranging from a swing that read “Once Upon a Time,” to a prehistoric bird flying over the room, to meteor formations, to lava, to icebergs, this was a momentous show for a designer who always puts on an occasion.

What did it all mean? It started with a moment of calm that unfolded to tell a tale as old as time, commenting on environmental causes such as the melting of icecaps and their impact on us humans and the world. Put by the brand, this was to “[juxtapose] perceived gender identities, historical references, day and evening, urban and sophisticated, thrillingly distilling Maria Grazia Chiuri’s imaginative interpretation of Virgina Woolf’s Orlando.”