Low and Slow, Casablanca Does Los Angeles
Review of Casablanca Spring 2025 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
SoCal. Sunshine. Subcultural.
For Casablanca’s Charaf Tajer, every season is a new destination. Spring 2025 sees the creative director take his vision of vibrant, resort-ready luxury to the streets and beaches of Los Angeles, mixing up a heady cocktail of subcultural references.
As embodied by the staging that featured three beautiful examples of classic lowrider cars with their hydraulic suspension capabilities on full display, one of the collection’s primary points of reference is lowrider culture, which remains as an iconic aesthetic in Chicano culture and beyond. Oversized shorts and buttonups, bandanas, and knee high socks are the unmistakable elements at play that top into this instantly recognizable style pioneered by young Mexican Americans in Los Angeles – in fact, the references are so direct that we might actually lose what makes it Casablanca. Other subcultural identities into which Tajer fully jumps include surfers, skaters, festival girls, streetball players, flower children, and funk musicians à la Bootsy Collins, all treated with vibrant graphics and paired with layered playful jewelry and the house’s signature bags.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
While the collection’s best looks – particularly in the suiting – achieve a strong balance between Casablanca’s brand identity and the SoCal subcultural aesthetics it is investigating, many of the looks lose this identity by going too deeply in that direction, sometimes almost feeling like a parody of the styles they are trying to celebrate. This might be one of the risks of Casablanca’s new season, new destination approach making itself felt more than ever before now that the brand has settled into this rhythm: when every season is about diving into the next thing, it can be hard to maintain something that remains constant, while the previous efforts can feel a bit disposable.
Nonetheless, there is plenty of sunshine and good vibes to take in with this vibrant and detailed collection, and it does continue into Casablanca’s spirit of fostering community and celebrating cultural conversation. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how the brand continues to refine its balance between reinventing itself with a new theme each season and maintaining a cohesive core identity.
