The Body at Work, at Work
Review of Duran Lantink Fall 2025 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Twisted Town and Country, Back to the Office, BodyCore
We are back to work, it’s official, with Paris confirming its love for the forgotten place we once spent the majority of our time – Stella McCartney took over an office building and Swedish fashion retailer H&M brought back the office cubicle complete with an original Apple Mac to launch their Spring 2025 studio collection – the office is back in fashion. As a show setting for Duran Lantink it gave up no clues as to the provocative performance the audience was in for, as the body, and the myriad ways the designer distorts it took a surreal turn today with the use of hyper-real silicone prosthetics. But more on that later.
Town, county, and the concrete jungle clashed in a collection that proposed a new uniform for a modern army where bomber jackets were puffed and padded to their limit and camouflage prints and tartans made a comeback in 2D kilts that were fixed to the body like a paper dolls dress. This flattening of the tops of bottoms into 2D forms was cheeky gesture, as some of the shapes wouldn’t fit over the body, it was left instead for backsides and chiselled backs to go bare. Shocking and amusing a notoriously jaded fashion crowd who will have seen it all in their show-going lifetimes. Yet the shocks kept coming as on the weekend when International Women’s Day was celebrated the designer took to performing a literal body swap as those prosthetics were used to create a near-perfect rendition of the male torso on a female model to wear as a second skin and perhaps know what it feels like to live life as a man in todays world. But it was the sight of model Chandler Frye in a pair of prosthetic breasts that shocked the most as they appeared both radical and simultaneously perverse – for their objectification of women’s body parts. Because even if the goal may have been to get men to emphasise with women, when this look goes to retail they may be purchased for more cynical reasons.
Away from the shock and awe tactics, country was re-coded with classic cable knits shown with built-up capelets which resembled extreme headrests, and what has become a sort-of metaphorical symbol for the season, the flotation device or rubber ring was used here, as with Alaïa, to create a force-field around the body which defied gravity and which are more commonly seen on the runways of the Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo or Junya Watanabe. These unconventional details made the inclusion of a basic navy sweater with a heron motif seem an outlier, or perhaps an Easter egg in disguise, similar to the Barbour collaboration which looked to be teased in the raised-shoulder reworking of the quilted classic. And in amongst the body-dysmorphic designs were ideas that could pass for semi-normal in Lantinks world, The pinstripe pants with jutting hips, a wrap utility skirt, and the check minis skirts and animal-print trousers, proof that the advice that comes with having been an LVMH Prize recipient of the Karl Lagerfeld prize has been invaluable.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
Today, as a young designer Duran Lantink was having fun with fashion, but did the spectacle he created propel his brand forward or seem like a gimmick made to go viral? As a designer known for bulbous silhouettes which exaggerate the body, he can always be relied upon to provide a moment of wonder during Paris fashion week. Now, as a star-designer in the rough who is working outside of the confines of the ‘box’, he is also mastering the art of commerciality, as in amongst the blown-up silhouettes were simple knits and an enviable zebra-print car coat, but then his cut-out backs to reveal the naked backsides of models and a pair of prosthetic boobs worn by a male model seemed placed for virality’s sake alone. Shocking yes, a distraction, also yes.
Duran Lantink is a major talent on the rise so these attention-grabbing moments, while fun, only take away from the brands clear directional vision and demand to be taken seriously.
