In Paris, fashion is as much about ideas as it is about aesthetics, and each season reveals a conversation between designers, highlighting shared concerns that transcend individual houses. This year, taut silhouettes dominated the runway, underscoring the industry’s continuing fascination with precision and form. Some designers, such as Rick Owens, adhered to house codes emphasizing sculptural displays, while others, like the Miuccia camp, explored structure in feminine forms.
Christian Dior
Dior’s corset-heavy presentation resurrected the art of boning and structure. Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collection drew inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, featuring crinolines, white-crimped collars, velvet jacquards, and lace. While Chiuri’s Dior aesthetic has always been dreamy, this season it incorporated starched hats, rigid materials, and a dose of gender nonconformity. The Autumn/Winter 25 collection extended the boldness of Woolf’s text through the fabric narrative at Dior. Chiuri explained before the show, “Women at the beginning of the last century – they were breaking the rules, wearing men’s clothes, and men too.” She cited this fluidity in wardrobe choices as a key inspiration for her designs. “To be transversal in our day today is very important,” she added. The collection’s assured silhouettes spoke to this fluidity, regardless of the wearer.
Vivienne Westwood
Andreas Konthaler’s 30-year tenure continued with 56 tailored Westwood looks on the sixth day of Paris Fashion Week. Models were dressed in sharp plaid creases, paired with floor-sweeping neckties. In memory of his late partner, Konthaler’s Westwood also paid tribute to hats—large, rigid constructions that blended elements of pork pie hats and fedoras. Velvet and tulle added padded shoulders, and trench coats pulled dramatically toward the floor. The show notes emphasized, “There’s nothing sexier than a suit!” Konthaler embraced this ethos by revising classic forms with adornment, maintaining the artful, sentimental qualities that have always been at the heart of Westwood’s presentations.
Miu Miu
Since its inception in 1993, Miu Miu has served as Miuccia Prada’s more youthful, playful offshoot. Both of Prada’s labels are grounded in a spirit of femininity that anchors women in the modern world of fashion. This year’s collection, titled Femininities, remained true to this vision. The display featured brooches, knee-high socks paired with flat brogues, riding hats, and buttery sweaters, all offering a textural depiction of womanhood in transition—the delicate balance between girlhood and womanhood weaving through every element of the show.
At the Palais D’lena, hemlines consistently reached the knee, marking a departure from the iconic Miu Miu miniskirts of previous seasons. Despite this, the garments remained rich in narrative, with structure taking on new dimensions. Fur accessories and sleek cloche hats atop polished, flyaway-free hair further anchored the collection in a modern reimagining of the past. For the women Mrs. Prada dresses, structure serves as a connection to the past, which they bring into the present.
Rick Owens
At his Concordians show, Rick Owens reached what could be seen as his final form, though it remains ever-evolving. The high-concept collection was marked by signature black pleating, a departure from the conventional, and textured leather. The runway was transformed into an isolated pit, from which tautly constructed looks emerged, shrouded in white mist.
The collection drew inspiration from Owens’ early years in the Italian town of Concordia, where form began to take root in his designs. Asymmetry, hyper-stylized draping, and deconstructed gowns reappeared in the collection, though this time with skin exposed through punctured holes. The collection echoed the familiar Rick Owens aesthetic: dark, brutal, and sharply executed.
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