Romance Rules as Boho Chic Evolves and Sports Takes Centre Stage in a Season of Cohesive Contrast
By Angela Baidoo
As a lighter more romantic mood was promoted across the spring 2025 season, designers took on the challenge of creating desire in the consumer once again. Hyper-tactile surfaces in the form of maxi-fringing invite the touch, an evolution of boho chic into a more sensual iteration precedes the rise of hedonism, and everyday decadence leans into the imperfect to reflect how women want to dress today.
Here at The Impression we take you through the key trends, as well as the ones-to-watch from the spring 2025 collections.
Index
- Haute Hedonism
- Shake It Off
- Deconstructed Decadence
- We Flock Together
- Olympic Spirit
- Candy Coated
- Sculpture Park
- One-to-Watch: Brit Pop
Haute Hedonism
Chemena Kamali’s debut at Chloé marked the full circle resurgence of boho chic, as her billowing maxi dresses and volume sleeve blouses were a welcome change from all things ‘Quiet Luxury’. Next season the trend is set to evolve into a more hedonistic guise as colours get deeper and richer and the glamour quotient is dialled up to 100. The change was led by Marco De Vincenzo at Etro whose tenure as creative director has seen him successfully reinvent the brand for a new generation and inspire this trend of ultra-luxe separates, sunset prints, and cut-out jersey dresses.
Shake It Off
The simplest method of embellishment will be a favourite for spring 2025, as we saw an abundance of textural and extra-long fringing applied across removable skirt-belts at Dior, an abstract artwork at Missoni, and add surface interest to a dolly coat at Gucci. Designers truly took to experimenting with the possibilities, as Glenn Martens at Diesel extended it out from the lapel of a blazer to became a scarf, and at Bottega Veneta it transformed into a shaggy hat-cum-wig mimicking a lions mane, to align with Matthieu Blazy’s ‘Dressing-up’ theme of the season.
Deconstructed Decadence
In a rejection of perfection, there was more fun to be had in playing with the unfinished and undone, to reflect the reality of the messiness of life. Rendered in the most sumptuous fabrics, Carven’s Louise Trotter left hems raw and backs open, Proenza Schouler and Rabanne found beauty in over-printing folds and pleats, while Nicolas Ghesquière suggested just knotting the extra swathes of fabric at hems.
We Flock Together
The lightness which permeated the collections was reflected in a literal way with this trend, as feathers became a symbol of the need to counteract the heaviness in the world. Opting for both real and faux versions, Richard Quinn and Jonathan Anderson at Loewe gave white feathers the couture treatment. Burberry and Alexander McQueen required a closer look as they both tasked their ateliers to recreate ‘feather’ from layers of chiffon, which deceived the eye on the runway. Birds – and their feathers – were one of Stella McCartney’s key inspirations for spring 2025, and in highlighting their mistreatment by the industry for their protective coverings she produced one of the key looks from Paris fashion week in the form of a ‘fluffy’ nestling bird dress made from recycled plastic bottles.
Olympic Spirit
The spirit of a successful 2024 Olympics, hosted by Paris, lives on. As it was a games intrinsically linked to fashion due to LVMH becoming the exclusive premium partner. The ripple effects of which continued to influence all this season, with the body/swimsuit emerging as a key item, as seen at The Attico, Dior, and embellished – so not for swimming – at Tory Burch. Lightweight technical outerwear was styled with everything from party wear to tailoring, and the classic football jersey was patchworked into dresses at Ganni and Labrum. Collaborations were also revealed from Willy Chavarria and Adidas to The Attico and Nike, proving that despite their woes they are still sought out for their technical expertise. The influence of sports and the Olympics is only set to grow as the US takes on the games next and LVMH announced the inking of a 10-year partnership with Formula one.
Candy Coated
Whenever fashion becomes enamoured with romance and softness pastel tones will inevitably follow, and that they did as a full palette of hues made their way across the collections of Zimmermann and Akris in peach, baby pink at Giambattista Valli, and giving the cooler tones a Y2k spin David Koma developed strappy dresses in ice blue. Redefining the use of pastels was Erdem who washed and bleached mint-coloured denim until it appeared to glow, and the design studio at Dries Van Noten and Rabanne are making the case for daytime decadence with pastel jacquard tailoring.
Sculpture Park
Breaking away from the expected and into the realm of the avant-garde, we finally saw a push for a point-of-view by designers who harnessed couture and body morphing techniques through padding, controlled volume, and molding. These bespoke looks, due to their hand-crafted construction, could opens up the possibility of made-to-order services to disrupt the traditional retail sales funnel, especially for emerging talent.
One-to-Watch: Brit Pop
As Oasis announced they were to re-form and tour in 2025 there was a definite throwback to the Cool Brittania era of the mid-90s in the air. Led by Daniel Lee at Burberry who dug deeper into the house codes and paired a party dress with a parka, the look was then seen at No.21 where Alessandro Dell’Acqua took his inspiration from the rebelliousness of the Mods of the 1960s, and Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons gave us the ultimate high-low version with a canary yellow anorak and mirrored shift dress. Keep this trend on your radar as more parkas and party dresses, band T-shirts and record bags make an appearance at the pre-fall and fall collections.
