Paris Fashion Week Men’s Autumn/Winter 2025 felt like a season of creative transition as fashion houses figure out new strategies that could help to spur growth.
“Everyone’s waiting with bated breath to see what will happen in February, June, September, next January when a lot of the creative changes that have been happening or that seem promised to happen will,” says GQ senior fashion writer Samuel Hine. “Big ideas don’t happen every season. It takes time for these big macro-level trends to emerge and everything to shift. Think of the watershed moments: the luxury-fication of streetwear, quiet luxury, the latest big idea that influenced lots of things in the industry. We are still in a moment of creative transition, and everyone is waiting to see what the next big idea will be.”
In the meantime, Paris still provided plenty of highlights for AW25, including Kim Jones’s dramatic and solemn Dior show on Friday afternoon, just before the designer was presented with the Legion d’Honneur with Robert Pattinson and Gwendoline Christie among those in attendance; the collaboration between Louis Vuitton creative director Pharrell and his longtime friend, A Bathing Ape (Bape) founder and Kenzo creative director Nigo; Jacquemus’s intimate yet star-studded show; Peter Copping’s spectacular debut at Lanvin; and the exciting visit from New York crown jewel Willy Chavarria.
Designers underline heritage
In the current climate, luxury brands are looking for ways to prove their value by exploring their heritage and cultural relevance. Louis Vuitton’s menswear show on Tuesday night at the Louvre was a collaboration between Pharrell and Nigo, with whom Pharrell created streetwear label Billionaire Boys Club in 2003. The show was a celebration of their friendship (so-called Phriendship), featuring the Bape logo on Vuitton bags, “Paris, New York, Tokyo” emblazoned on hoodies to pay homage to their origins and portraits of the duo over their 30 years of friendship. The collection was eclectic, blending the duo’s influences throughout their careers, as opposed to themes Pharrell has explored in the past.
Pharrell may be better known for his major spectacles, music performances and parties around his Louis Vuitton shows. But this season, he turned that on its head when the cloudy glass panes of 24 metal boxes on the runway cleared to display a wide-reaching collection of Pharrell, Nigo and Louis Vuitton’s archives. Treasures included Billionaire Boys Club merch from the early 2000s, skateboards and bags from the iconic Louis Vuitton x Supreme collaboration and N.E.R.D vinyls. Pieces from the collection will soon go on sale on the Joopiter.com auction platform.
Rick Owens also explored his personal history this season, inspired by his many trips to his factory in Concordia, Italy, over the last 20 years, where his accommodation ranged from luxury suites to “serial killer” hotel rooms or sleeping in the factory itself, according to the show notes. Models walked to David Bowie’s Heroes as FKA Twigs looked on from the front row. The show featured leather trousers with laser cut, jagged fringe details at the feet, Dracucollared jackets and coats and long-line draped hoodies. Yet it was also a practical and pragmatic collection, inspired by Owens’s time living out of a suitcase and designed to coincide with the release of his new Rimowa collaboration. Models wore necklaces made with the same cow fur luggage tags that come with each case. And for added practicality, looks were underpinned with thermals, the designer shared, which “changed his attitude about winter when he moved to Europe from California”.
Meanwhile, Jones was inspired by the Ligne H conceived by Christian Dior for Autumn/Winter 1954 — a silhouette designed to simplify women’s fashion in the post-war period. Jones reinterpreted this as “a celebration of men’s couture” seen in volumes, finishes and drapery. “The collection is really looking at key moments in Dior’s history, taking garments from the archive and working them into something very clean, new and modern,” Jones told Vogue Business. “It’s a very chic, upscale feeling to the show, and it’s very tailored and very couture.”
At Officine Générale, Pierre Mahéo affirmed the DNA of his Parisian label by staging a show in the quintessential Left Bank café Le Rouquet. Officine Générale is known for its pared-back style and this season, again, Mahéo did just that. He wrote in the show notes that, when asked by friends if he isn’t tired of his sober colour palette of grey, navy and black, he replied: “You’re right: I’ll change everything... by a quarter of a shade... At a time when our industry is undergoing major changes, it seemed more important than ever to assert my point of view…with a little listening, and above all, a lot of obstinacy.”
As he expands his brand in America, Simon Porte Jacquemus dipped into his archives and chose a venue that was, similarly, very French: the apartment of French architect Auguste Perret in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. “When I started the collection a year ago, we were deciding to open stores in New York and Los Angeles,” the designer explained after the show. “So I had in mind these houses — Mr Dior himself or Coco Chanel — who crossed the Atlantic and were showing the codes of their houses. If I was going to America and would present Jacquemus, which codes would I present? What’s really Jacquemus? I re-embraced all our archives from the last 15 years. The stripes, the dots, the red, the banana print.” After opening in New York in October 2024, the brand is slated to open in Los Angeles in April and Miami in 2026.
The much-anticipated debut of Peter Copping at Lanvin didn’t disappoint. Copping gave a nice play to elegance, a nod to the heritage of the oldest Parisian couture house. “I went very deep into the archives, but I didn’t want it to be very academic; I wanted it to be spontaneous,” Copping said after the show. The British designer, who was previously creative director at Nina Ricci and Oscar de la Renta, was inspired by graphic imagery. “It’s something that I never referenced before because the houses where I had been were very feminine. Nina Ricci was very soft, with floral prints and lace. The graphic elements from the 1920s and the 1930s really appealed to me.” This show marked the first time that Copping threw his hat in the ring of menswear. “I wanted the men and women to feel the same spirit. The man has a feminine side to him.” That was evident in an embroidered top with sequins.
Creative formality
GQ’s Hine coined what’s happening this season as “creative formality”, noting that suits took over the runway. “None of it was exactly ‘quiet luxury’,” he said. “Rick Owens didn’t show suits exactly, but simple overcoats that might not immediately read as Rick Owens intensity.”
For Hine, no one epitomises better than Jones this idea of creative formality. “Dior was the best show of the season so far. It was a masterclass of construction, of lines, of materials. Everything looked perfect. It was a defining and powerful show, really setting a new bar for that idea of creative formality and couture-like construction for menswear.”
”Kenzo [on Friday night] was also much more formal,” Hine adds. “There were these really interesting inside-out, or reversible knit blazers and nice kind of swingy overcoats in bright colours. It was a poppy, fun interpretation of more formal menswear. It’s a nice step in a new direction for Nigo. I’m excited to see what they do going forward with Joshua A Bullen [new design director under Nigo].”
This was echoed by Véronique Nichanian, artistic director of Hermès menswear. “I wanted to bring back the suit just for fun, for the pleasure of wearing a suit or a tie, not because you have to. I want men to play with beautiful suits. It’s very nice and sexy,” she said after the show. The collection had double-breasted suits, shearlings and duffle coats. The lines reflect “a disciplined informality”, according to the show notes.
Issey Miyake’s IM Men line embraced this idea of creative formality when it made its runway debut on Thursday, according to Daniel Todd, buying director at Mr Porter. He pointed to the brand’s “artful, sharp tailoring paired with flowy trousers and underlayers, harmoniously blending with a mix of intricate fabrications and bold pops of cobalt blue, white and bright yellow. The celebration of fabric and form is exciting.”
Shooting for versatility
As we saw in Milan, designers are keen to build a whole wardrobe for AW25 that’s versatile and adaptable, with more casual, everyday fashion alongside the usual tailoring. Plaid and tartan are emerging as key trends for the season, spotted at System, Undercover and Comme des Garçons. Junya Watanabe was case in point. Last season’s patchwork denim suiting and tartan patches gave way to true outdoorsy, casual fashion, with plaid shirts and overshirts, barn jackets and tartan trapper hats. The soundtrack featured drawling ballads from country singer Avi Kaplan as models stomped through the empty concrete space.
Reversible and modular fashion, while a gimmick perhaps in womenswear, is becoming more commonplace in the men’s market, led, naturally, by Japanese designers. At Yohji Yamamoto’s Thursday evening show, groups of models stopped mid-walk on the runway to turn their monochromatic, padded waterproof jackets inside out and exchange them with each other, showing the reversibility of the clothes.
Based on creating fashion “from a single cloth”, IM Men demonstrated the versatility and modularity of the clothing when models disrobed their intricate jackets to reveal they were from a single square of fabric before running through the space with them wafting through the air. The brand held an exhibition the following day to explain the innovation and craft behind the collection and the IM Men brand.
It’s not just about technical clothes. This season, we also saw reversible jackets at The Row (in the form of a reversible pea coat, mint on one side, camel suede on the other) and Dries Van Noten, where decorative, beaded cuffs or fur collars could be removed by the wearer, depending on the occasion.
Maturing talents and new names
We continue to anticipate Julian Klausner’s first show for Dries Van Noten following his appointment last month. But people got a taste at Paris Fashion Week Men’s, with a presentation of a menswear collection “designed by the Dries Van Noten Studio and directed by Julian Klausner” against the backdrop of a lookbook shot by Willy Vanderperre. The jury is still out on what the house might look like under Klausner.
With his Paris debut coinciding with the 10th anniversary of his brand, Willy Chavarria brought a new energy to the city. “The energy and the sense of confidence is so stunning, so strong,” says British designer Samuel Ross. The venue was the American cathedral, and the casting included American DJ Honey Dijon, Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo and Colombian singer J Balvin, who also performed. It felt like the only political show in Paris this season. “It was the place — a church — and the timing of Donald Trump’s declaration of war on immigrants, LGBTQI+, and women’s rights, which, of course, super-charged the political relevance of Chavarria’s takeover,” wrote Vogue Runway’s Sarah Mower. As a finale, Chavarria stood in front of the models as the plea for mercy that Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde made last week to President Donald Trump played.
Mr Porter’s Todd said Chavarria made a “striking entrance” with his debut in Paris, delving into heritage through a contemporary lens. “Classic tailoring was reimagined through oversized, sharp silhouettes, featuring rich velvet in a vibrant palette of reds, browns, black, and candy apple green. The rosette detail on the blazers felt daring yet nostalgic, creating a fluid connection between tradition and modernity.”
Japanese label Auralee is having a moment, despite its modest size, versus the luxury juggernauts or Japanese veterans that dominate the Paris menswear schedule. The brand came out on top in Vogue’s deep dive on what sold at independent stores in 2024, and its designer, Ryota Iwai, was voted one of fashion’s most underrated designers by readers in the Vogue Runway 2024 industry poll. The brand’s show on the first day of PFW was a wearable, well-styled masterclass in layering. Following on from the mood of Milan, casual and formalwear were blended, with hoodies and puffer jackets layered over suiting or tied round the waists, or rucksacks, scarves spilling out, were held at arm s length by the hip. Todd marked the show as a highlight, noting its “incredible exploration of fabrications”.
A few new talents bubbled up, too. From All-In to Hodakova, PR David Siwicki has represented some of Paris’s most exciting upstarts in recent seasons. So when he invited Vogue Business to Austrian designer Laura Andraschko’s off-schedule show on Wednesday afternoon, we made a point of attending.
The collection, entitled “Après-ski”, riffed on upper-class culture, a theme Andraschko regularly explores. But this time, the focus was ski culture, with ski resort names like Ischgl and Matterhorn printed on hoodies and T-shirts, paired with panties or mini skirts. Model Lindsey Wixson opened the show, wearing an Austrian jacket, tweed dress and fur bubble skirt.
At the start of the week, before many editors and buyers had made it from Milan, Californian streetwear label 424 made its Paris debut with a presentation to unveil its new Nike collaboration. Aligning with the enduring bloke core trend, the AW25 collection is inspired by vintage football kits, including Brazil’s 1998 World Cup jersey, Inter Milan, and the US national team jersey.
“It’s been a strong season,” says Sophie Jordan, menswear buying director at Mytheresa. “Brands were less keen to play it safe and were embracing how they can create emotion with the customer to buy, but still staying true to their own DNA.”
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