“So what are your main takeaways from this menswear season?” Vogue Business’s indefatigable Paris correspondent Laure Guilbault asked me as she whipped out her phone. Before she could press record, however, we were firmly directed off the Hermès runway — the show was about to start. I never caught up with Laure again, so here goes.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in 15 years,” observed a brand founder on the first day in Paris. He was talking about the flattening (and in some cases decline) in the consumer appetite for luxury. That slowdown has affected budgets and temperaments; this season, whether unconsciously or not, it affected collections, too. Designers went collab heavy for Autumn/Winter 2025, because collabs can be cool but also because collabs open up fresh revenue streams. There was also an emphasis on fundamental pieces — essentials — that was surely a way to signify that luxury is not always necessarily unnecessary, and thus an invitation to buy. Finally, there was also an emphasis on eclecticism: as well as inspiring some brilliant collections (most notably Prada), this was also the way in which designers could cast their nets most widely.
Which brings us to the AW25 edition of Vogue Runway’s snap poll of the season’s most widely consumed collections, based purely on the amount of views each receives during its first 48 hours of publication. From the off, we knew this list would include some fresh names. Last June, it featured both JW Anderson (in seventh place) and Loewe (at number nine). So the absence of Anderson from the season (but why?), plus Gucci’s co-ed holdout (it was second on SS25 list) until Milan’s womenswear week next month meant that, whatever happened, change was inevitable. And we have not included Saint Laurent, which happened too late to make the cut. Here you go!
10. Sacai
Chitose Abe’s much-revered Sacai stays in the top 10 after coming in at number four last season with her fantastic James Dean-inspired collection. Doubtless part of the reason for its popularity on Vogue Runway is that the menswear is mixed with pre-fall womenswear. However, this collab-heavy Where the Wild Things Are outing was also full of monstrously gorgeous pieces to gawp at for menswear heads. Some of the third season Sacai x Carhartt pieces were among the best of the bunch, and it was cool to see French footwear brand JM Weston get a moment in the spotlight. Plus, Abe’s wing-pocket pants were back in full flight.
9. Dries Van Noten
It seemed surprising that last season’s DVN show only came in at number six on the list: after all, that was Van Noten’s last-ever show at the house he founded, there was womenswear and the casting was epic. In contrast, but also surprisingly, this season seems to have placed pretty high. For this lookbook-only, the showroom-displayed collection was something of a placeholder, designed by the menswear team as the internally appointed Julian Klausner warms up to step up as creative director. And yet the Willy Vanderperre-shot lookbook is a classically lovely piece of editorial — it took me back to L’Uomo Vogue — and the clothes appeared richly and romantically evocative.
8. The Row
For the second season in a row, The Row is the eighth most-viewed collection on our list — a perfect position for a brand that so adroitly polices its niche while cultivating esteem on its own terms. Paris-based fashion writer Amy Verner’s typically astute review for this collection finely encapsulates the understated appeal of ‘The Row-iverse’: “[It’s] unfussy clothes for a rarified group.” Late this Monday morning I passed its new Paris store and noticed a queue of approximately 20 people lined (in a row) around the corner of Rue du Mont Thabor — even more than Goyard across the block.
7. Dior Men
Dior Men shot up the rankings to seventh from 10th spot on the list, thanks to a collection many observers are hailing as Kim Jones’s finest ever at the house, if not across his entire time so far in Paris. Even the locals — who can sometimes be harder to please — wholeheartedly agreed. As Le Point’s erudite and menswear-facing deputy editor Gilles Denis posted: “Jones reduced an entire audience almost to tears with his Dior Men collection, an épuré of chic and sophistication, a modern echo of Christion Dior’s H line, a couture spirit, and yet [with] an incredible drive to store desire.” In a season understandably but sometimes also overly populated by runway collabs, (which to be fair is something Jones has previously spearheaded at Dior) this was a fashion show and collection for the purists.
6. Rick Owens
What’s basic for Rick Owens isn’t necessarily basic for you and I. Pre-show, he teased the collection’s process as a consideration of “getting back to basics and asking what are the essentials in my life”. The soundtrack was David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ (recorded in multiple languages) to underline that these garments — including the long johns he’s become such a fan of since decamping from California to Europe — were everyday heroes in the Owens pantheon. And yet the armadillo-esque leather-panelled skirts and boot gaiters by Victor Clavelly, plus Matisse Di Maggio’s delicately sculptural fetish-adjacent rubber garments, were about as far from basic as it gets. Still, for those who love Owens’s spirit but lack his mordantly dark panache and personal style, there was plenty to adore in the ‘Dracucollar’ outerwear. Understated compared to last season’s epic tear-jerker, such was the engagement with this collection (check Vogue Runway post), that it slipped only one spot down the rankings.
5. Lanvin
Debut alert! Peter Copping’s premiere at Lanvin also saw the well-liked British designer take on menswear for the first time. Personally, I enjoyed the fluffy argyle, the cultivated casual tailoring and the colour stories that sometimes took me back to Lucas Ossendrijver’s much-missed tenure at a house at which it has become almost (but not quite) unnecessary to note it has not of late been the force it once was. Copping, however, might be the man to shift that needle. The womenswear was “ace”, as Vogue Runway’s Sarah Mower termed his undisputed talents. Last season Lanvin was nowhere, and now it is somewhere — so let’s see where it heads next.
4. Ralph Lauren
So I have a colleague who was (happily) surprised that 85-years-young Ralph Lauren rode out of nowhere to lasso fourth spot on the Vogue Runway menswear list this season — and with only a lookbook, too. It doesn’t surprise me very much at all. Ralph is both ubiquitous and niche, thanks to a breadth and depth of design language that allows the designer to meet the desires and interests of multiple masculine typologies and generations. This collection was his sartorial Purple Label line, which arguably (along with RRL) is the most rarefied solar system in his menswear galaxy. Lauren, however, covers almost every conventional archetype in a way that feels unconventionally cinematic and larger than life. It would be wonderful to see where he lands on this list after a real, live, menswear fashion show.
3. Jacquemus (co-ed)
The super smooth and super talented Simon Porte Jacquemus has charmingly negotiated his way to the top of fashion’s contemporary establishment by doing things entirely his way. So, it’s entirely impossible to begrudge his inclusion as both the highest new entry and the only French designer on this list. Also, his menswear is cool; an elegantly waisted modernising distortion of 1950s riviera-wear — Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, if remade and stylised for the 2050s.
But also, that womenswear: Grace Kelly would surely have lapped it up. Chapeau!
2. Prada
Ah, order is restored. Thanks to what was one of the most disordered (on purpose) collections in the Miuccia x Raf era of runway shows, Prada climbs a spot up to second from third — and remains (as usual) very close to the top of the list. Speaking selfishly, I loved this wear-everything collection because it was relatively straightforward to write about: the eclecticism was singular, and the sense of dislocation powerfully rooted. Simons summed up the process as: “We come to a point where we say, ‘That feels right.’ If we try to not really dictate something or make a theory, it’s more, ‘That feels right.’” Although, what feels slightly wrong is that (Ralph’s showroom outing apart) this is the only Milan-hosted collection to make the list this season.
.png)
1. Louis Vuitton
The star power of Pharrell Williams operating in tandem with luxury fashion’s largest conglomerate’s defining brand continues to dominate this eyeballs-defined list: LV is number one, again. To ensure that remained the case, Williams recruited A Bathing Ape’s Nigo for a much-leaked, co-authored collection that operated on two levels. Firstly, it turned the peripatetic LV-ers lens on Japan for a season. And secondly, it acted as a scrapbook with looks recounting the various phases of the two men’s 25-year bromance. Will Louis Vuitton stay top come SS26? Come back in June to find out.
.png)
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
Glenn Martens is named Maison Margiela creative director
How Mike Amiri is building a fashion house for the 22nd century
