The “How Often Do You Think of the Roman Empire?” meme has come and gone, as memes tend to do, but things medieval keep cropping up. Consider the online and IRL appearances of Burberry’s gallant knight, Chappell Roan’s conical hennin hat at the Grammys, or TikTok’s “bardcore.” This inclination for the Middle Ages could be related to the fifth anniversary of the COVID pandemic. In the spring of 2020, when it felt like we were living through a latter-day Black Plague, some of us turned to Giovanni Boccaccio’s 1353 Decameron, a novel about a group of Florentine nobles who escaped the virus in a pastoral hideaway where they told each other stories.
In the political environment of 2025, retreat doesn’t seem as reliable an option. Resistance was a word that came up again and again in our conversations with designers during the recent fall season. What came down the runways were armor-like clothes for brave knights and their off-duty tights and tunics, as well as sumptuous brocades and patterned velvets for elegant ladies.
To be clear, very few designers identified the Medieval Ages as a seasonal touch stone, but you’ll see below that those far-away times were nonetheless in the air. Why do such fantasies seem so attractive now? In a manosphere that seems especially welcoming to toxic villains, my guess is that there is a collective longing for the reappearance of valiant heroes and heroines who believe that, “like it or not, right must prevail.”
