The Essential Spring 2025 Trends: Fashion Celebrates Soft Power, the Sorcery of Seduction, Dandies, and More

October 8, 2024

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The 12 top trends of the spring 2025 collections speak not to politics, but to the idea of soft power—of using fashion to influence, beguile, charm, seduce, and bewitch. The season as a whole felt uplifting, positive, and women-friendly; the overall message being, as Nicole Phelps put it: “You don’t have to renounce your strength to be feminine.” Or, as Muhammed Ali so memorably put it: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

Fashion can take us places; one of designers’ chosen destinations for spring was cloud nine. This was a season in which air was the predominant element and ethereality abounded. Chiffons floated and jerseys swung in unison with the body—movement being another key theme. Cloud-like dresses were buoyed with stuffing at Comme des Garçons and Torishéju, or actually inflated as they did at Anrealage; elsewhere, more traditional balloon skirts puffed out the picture. At the same time, fall’s fascination with 2D flatness evolved to the point where many garments seemed to defy gravity. This is an aesthetic set in motion seasons ago by Glenn Martens’s use of wire at Y/Project and Demna’s “windswept” couture look.

Designers this season encouraged a willing suspension of disbelief, meaning an openness to a sense of wonder—and not just when it came to the clothes. At Bottega Veneta, chairs were magicked into squishy creatures, and backstage Matthieu Blazy showcased a copy of Richard Scarry’s Biggest Word Book Ever with a custom intrecciato cover. Scarry’s Busy, Busy World and What Do People Do All Day? would’ve been equally a propos for a season in which many shows celebrated individuality, rather than showcasing a narrative through-line. That’s also how the world works in Busy Town, where the reader is introduced to all manner of folk, their jobs, attire, and accouterments (pickle car, anyone?) going about their business with more or less finesse. And don’t tell me there is no connection between Lowly Worm and Blazy’s one-legged pants! Skants, skorts, and skirts-over-pants were news this season.

The presence of plaids, typically a fall/winter theme, speaks to the a-seasonality of our global world. It also evokes grunge and its attendant “come as you are ethos.” “Fashion needs to get messed up,” said Balenciaga’s Demna; he wasn’t the only designer who rejected perfectionism in favor of something more lived-in.

At Alaïa, Peter Mulier introduced the idea of the spiral, while the Möbius strip made an appearance at Courrèges, where Nicolas Di Felice addressed the feeling of nostalgia-soaked postmodernism running as if in a continuous loop. “In the period that we live in, it’s always a comeback to something else—and I’m not talking only about fashion—so I decided we’re going to work on cycles and repetition,” the designer said. Indeed this season’s trends are largely a remix of tendencies designers have been playing with for the past two years or so, such as Madame Grès–inspired draping, balletcore, etc. These ideas are reframed to be sure, but it is hard to shake the feeling that the world is at a tipping point, and forward motion will be determined based on the results of November’s US presidential election.

Still, stasis is not an option; the world, and fashion, must proceed. There is work to be done. In a strangely apolitical season, Willy Chavarría’s América show told the story of the USA “through the voice of the immigrants, and the people who make this motherfucker run,” as the designer put it. And it stood out. If you think about it, utilitarian workers’ gear forms the basis of American style: jeans, t-shirts and tank tops, khakis. Fashion isn’t finished with barn-jacket beige and for spring the hue appeared in scouting and military-inspired looks. Olive drab, a hue known to army brats (not to be confused with Charli’s brats), expanded the palette.

Seemingly no collection was without some kind of slim and sleek tank silhouette; fashion’s Olympics-fueled athletic fixation has not yet waned. At Christian Dior, tanks had a sporty aspect. We also saw sophisticated takes on sportiness like billowy polo dresses and windbreakers in materials from nylon to satin to wear with sequined dresses.

Circles and discs, symbols associated with femininity, were also abundant. The invitation to Jonathan Anderson’s spring show for Loewe was a ring, and on the runway the man who resurrected the structured pannier for spring 2023, went further back in history to bring the bell-shaped hoop skirt back into rotation. His had a weightlessness the originals lacked. Panniers put in an appearance too, most notably on side-bolstered robe de style dresses popularized a century ago by Jeanne Lanvin. Also coming out from the shadows were bewitching looks. These ranged from the darkly mysterious (banshees were referenced at McQueen; Disney’s Wicked antiheroines made their presence known) to the romantic á la Stevie Nicks’s Rhiannon (who, as “a woman taken by the wind” is exceedingly on trend). Seduction is a kind of sorcery that designers played with via cone bras and transparent (tulle) veiling that was like a physical replication of a soft filter.

Softness and fluidity are not far apart, and into this especially feminine season, dandies made a dramatic entrance. At Saint Laurent the house founder was the muse. Sailors, Renaissance princes, Tudor kings, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and other storybook characters also came to life on the runways.

This analysis of the most directional spring trends is based on a review of over 400 brands in the four fashion capitals (New York, London, Milan, and Paris) as well as Tokyo, Copenhagen, and Berlin, plus women’s looks presented during menswear.

Cloud Nine: Inflated and Stuffed Shapes; Bubble Hems

Float away in power-pouf dresses that are stuffed or actually inflatable. More traditional bubble silhouettes offer a more down-to-earth alternative.

U-Turns: Tank Tops

A basic reimagined in a myriad of ways.

Bewitched: The Seduction of Dark Romance

Free-spirited or severe, these looks cast a spell.

Leg It: Skants, Skorts, and Skirts-Over-Pants

Fashion loves a hybrid; this season the skant and one-legged pants are contending for your attention.

Soft Filter: Tulle Wraps

Designers redefined the idea of taking the veil for spring.

Get Sporty: Upping the Game on Athleisure Staples

Windbreakers with sequins, or floor-sweeping polo dresses for the win.

Suspended Animation: Garments That Make You Wonder How They Stay on

Further developing the idea of flatness introduced for fall, designers turn to nude-illusion and other tricks of the trade to create anti-gravity looks.