Introducing Addressed, a weekly column where we’ll, ahem, address the joys (and tribulations!) of getting dressed. We’ll look at runway trends, real-life trends, talk to people whose style we love, and most importantly, answer your own fashion queries. Download the Vogue App and find our Style Chat section to submit your question.
On the Vogue App, user Kenickie asks: “I’m male and I’ve grown up looking at womenswear a lot, so naturally I tend to adopt a more womenswear-approach to menswear. What upcoming trends do you think can be taken from womenswear and easily translated into menswear?”
One of the biggest trends on both the spring 2025 runways in September and the fall 2025 shows currently debuting in Europe is “menswear as womenswear,” meaning lots of proper tailoring, three-piece suits and even ties. Granted, women have been wearing suits and ties for long enough that calling it “menswear” seems outdated, but it does work as short-hand to convey a message, which is why it was so exciting to receive this question on the Vogue App. (Have you downloaded it yet? Come, join the fun!)
I read immediately thought of Bally’s latest collection, where creative director Simone Bellotti delivered a sensual group of clothes with a focus on an hourglass silhouette delivered via peplums for both men and women. The peplum had already started to emerge as a trend in the womenswear collections, and seeing it interpreted for menswear was a thrilling twist. One of his takes on this formerly, almost exclusively, feminine style, was a layered a-line shape that casually emerged from underneath a cropped hoodie. But because the peplum resembled the hem of a classic blazer layered over a white blouse, it kept the focus on the overall sculptural shape, instead of immediately calling attention to the “shock” of seeing a man in a peplum. If you took a slightly larger (but not oversized) button-down shirt and layer it underneath a hoodie that’s a size or two too small, you’d likely achieve a similar effect. (Of course, you could always wear straightforward peplums—all clothes are for every body!—but I get the impression from your question that that’s not really what you are after.)
The current boom of designers showing co-ed collections is also a great place to find inspiration on how to translate certain trends across already fluid gender lines. The car coat is another silhouette taking center stage in the fall 2025 collections, a no-nonsense style that never goes out of style and fits into the nouveau dowdy moment of the season. At Gucci, they showed basically the same coat for men as they did for women; on the mens’ version, they replaced the fancy matching covered buttons for traditional ones, but of course, in this instance, leaning into the fancier details could be one way of engaging with the trend. Another way is to think of what the masculine equivalent of dowdy could be: perhaps a pair of brown polyester trousers that sit high on the waist, a button-down shirt with patch pockets in a shade of non-white white (think of Sebastian Stan at the Academy Awards in his Prada suit), and a fantastically retro gum shoe loafer (you know the kind). But perhaps you’re a bit more experimental than that! I loved how at the spring 2025 Gucci menswear collection, mid-thigh jackets worn with matching shorts in a similar length, had a bit of a look of a woman’s skirt suit. If this season sees women leaning into awkward, too-long lengths, why not lean into awkward, slightly too-short lengths?
In a sense, the key to borrowing from women is to be playful with proportions and silhouettes—menswear is pretty straightforward, but as soon as you mess with the rise of an inseam, or explode or shrink a jacket or a shirt, a new idea emerges (Jonathan Anderson absolutely knows this secret). At Loewe’s spring 2025 show he took on the budding skirt-over-pants trend, which has been slowly brewing for a few seasons, with roomy pleated gathered trousers that had a built-in plaid pareo evoking the grunge standard of a shirt tied around the waist. He showed the same pants in his womenswear collection, sans pareo but paired with a cropped a-line leather jacket instead, playing with expectations in the process. In the end, it’s all about trying out new shapes and fabrics, and discovering ways to appropriate and break the rules of all the things we deem decidedly “male” or “female.”
