Published
October 9, 2025
This was clearly the biggest season of this century, with some 15 designer debuts at major brands. Here, in alphabetical order, are my personal picks for the twelve best shows of the four-week international fashion runway season. Four of my favorites were debutantes; half of them are from designers.
Alaïa: Azzedine Mulier connects perfectly
An A+ for such a simple but brilliant staging. Models marched around two flattened, tennis-court-sized LED screens displaying giant close-ups of female beauty, all reflected in a dropped mirrored ceiling. Designer Pieter Mulier showed elegant cocktails in technical fibers, silk or ribbed fabrics with transparent inserts and diagonal fringes. Very skillfully draped with V-shaped skirts in layers and pleats of cotton and silk jersey, or a black leather perfect with offset shoulders that was transformed into a great dress. The power of founder Azzedine's voluptuous aesthetic combined with Mulier's precision and punch.
Bottega Veneta: Return Bottega to BV
Few designers exploited their new atelier as spectacularly as Louise Trotter at her Bottega Veneta debut, bringing Bottega back to BV with super-lightweight leather looks: trench coats, capes and blazers for men; off shoulder dresses and paneled dresses for women. All detailed with intreccio: collars, sleeves, lapels, trims and woven belts. Cinematic, Edwardian and the best new tailoring of the season.
Chanel: Enter the new Chanel universe
Bold, brave, witty, often beautiful and curiously daring, Matthieu Blazy's debut collection was the undoubted hit of the season. Blazy practically reinvented the classic Chanel suit with a new knee-length wrap skirt made with pockets, usually frayed and finished in gold filigree. And instead of just wool bouclé, it came in incredibly airy checks, window checks, or stiff denim. Disruptive codes: conceptual double-sized camellia brooches, woven pearl necklaces, Coco's beloved wheat embroidered on organza blouses. Additionally, Matthieu's magnificent array of gas-filled, internally illuminated giant planets in the Solar System brought Chanel back to the glory days of Karl Lagerfeld. It's no surprise that he received by far the biggest ovation of the season.
Dior: new look La Nouveau
No one can blame Jonathan Anderson for his lack of guts. His debut womenswear show for Dior turned the brand on its head, took a decade off its clientele, repeatedly exploited Monsieur Dior's New Look, and suddenly made Dior cool again. Their show-opening mashup video, a history of Dior as a unique living cultural monument made by documentarian Adam Curtis, was sensational and set the stage for Anderson's stream-of-consciousness visual spectacle. Rarely in the history of fashion has a designer so boldly twisted a house's codes, most notably Monsieur's legendary Bar jacket. The result was the most suggestive collection of the decade, let alone this season.
Diotima: carnival hits colonialism
The fight of colonialism and Caribbean culture against this evil through the tradition of Carnival was the theme of this intriguing collection by Diotima. Active sport meets couture: sleeveless hooded mesh tops and pants topped by a layered skirt with chiffon fragments; or fabulous flapless crepe redingotes, worn asymmetrically on the cast with J'Ouvert's pre-dawn street festival makeup with hints of silver mud. Epic, unusual, innovative and the most beautiful surprise in New York.
Giorgio Armani: Talk about goodbye
Leave it to Giorgio to come out swinging with brilliantly fresh, light and contemporary tailoring in the final collection he designed. Presented posthumously 24 days after his death in the neoclassical courtyard of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan's most important museum, which opened its first fashion exhibition (dedicated to Armani, of course) right after the show. Fashion's best tailor cut beautiful pajama suits for men and lightweight tunics and boleros for women, invented new dhoti pants and deconstructing blazers. Made from extremely light silks, dry linens and printed cottons, in the colors of its island home in sunny Pantelleria: burnt sand, lava, stone and navy blue. A beautiful swan song from the defining designer of the last half century.
Givenchy: Welcome to the new seduction
This season there is a new and refined sense of seduction in fashion. The best dark and devilish version comes from Givenchy. Durable and elegant black leather: leotards with bat wings, naughty little black dresses or men's coat dresses with a neckline. Crisp, clean tailoring: sculptural white double-breasted trouser suits or designer Sarah Burton's reinvention of Givenchy's signature Bettina blouse as an officer's shirt or aristocratic camisole. In a word, the most coherent wardrobe in Paris.
Khaite: dark beauty of the belly
Imperfection as a very wearable artistic fashion. Everything a little twisted or distorted, from strict elongated leather fisherman jackets to double-breasted urban blazers. Everything went a little off. Including the best setting in New York: a pitch-black pond and shattered glaciers covered in fog. “The darkest part of America has always fascinated me,” confessed designer Catherine Holstein. Indie feminine chic at its finest.
Louis Vuitton: a multicultural proposal
Like its inspiration, the apartment of Anne of Austria, the mother of the Sun King, a very eclectic collection that combines fabric blouses, tapestry details, carpet fabric shoes and brushed silk dresses in the style of the 18th century. From leggings cut like pants, shirts with six-inch aristocratic collars, lace bridesmaid dresses or scarlet satin bubble coats. In short, the most experimental and groundbreaking collection in Paris.
Prada: double winner
In case one had forgotten, Miuccia Prada remains the most important figure in Milan when it comes to fashion direction, momentum and overall elegance, as Prada's latest collection helpfully reminded us. A collection featuring almost visible bras that fluttered slightly and were exposed inside blouses, dresses and even cut-out aprons. Miuccia and Raf prepared all kinds of dirndl-style skirts and dresses, wraps, bubbles or gathered, alternating transparent fabrics and wrinkled materials such as technical taffeta, undoubtedly the fabric of the season. Suggesting a daring evening hostess, then revolutionizing the entire aesthetic 12 days later in her paean to the Miu Miu apron. In a season obsessed with debutantes, Miuccia once again emerged as the most influential designer.
Simone Rocha: Disgruntled debutantes rule
Disgruntled debutantes dressed in satin georgette, floral jacquards and silk organzas cut into crinolines, Venetian tailcoats or crinoline skirts. Refined organza crinolines embroidered with tiny flowers combined rebelliously with silver sequin bras or oversized trapeze dresses covered with huge fabric flowers. The best example of the season of a designer who goes beyond her own codes.
Versace: pop historicism
At Versace, Dario Vitale debuted with a love letter to founder Gianni. Held inside the historic Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the clothes harked back to the 1970s and Gianni's halcyon days in 1980s Miami, with bright South Beach colors (lime green, pomegranate or ultraviolet), looser, more indulgent tailoring, and multiple men's short shorts that recalled the body-beautiful bluster of early Versace. That said, no debutante took more risks than Vitale, whose daring volumes, exciting, revealing details, and raw cast of models took a decade off Versace's client.
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