Balenciaga's Beautiful Dark Twisted Maze For Winter 2025

 
 

Balenciaga’s Winter 25 collection redefines the standard, transforming familiar garments through an intricate exploration of dress codes and proportions. Presented in a backstage maze, the show itself mirrors the creative process—lines blurred, structures inverted, and everyone in the front row.

The collection dissects traditional businesswear, reshaping archetypes with precision. Four standard black suits, identical in cut but distinct in attitude, embody duality, while a deconstructed pinstripe suit and a maxi-skirt pairing challenge sartorial conventions. Outerwear follows suit: streamlined coats, maxi trenches, and a back-to-front quarter-zip nod to historical couture while integrating modern sensibilities. A sheepskin parka references Balenciaga’s 1951 Semi-Fitted line, and a voluminous hoodie echoes the grandeur of the house’s 1967 wedding dress.

Structural ingenuity extends to daywear, where push-up corsetry and anatomical tailoring reimagine standard pieces. Sweater dresses cinched with oversized safety pins, “Luxury” hoodies lined with superfine cashmere, and crushed Dyneema® shoppers demonstrate the brand’s commitment to craftsmanship and innovation.

Technical sportswear under the Balenciaga I PUMA collaboration evokes minimal yet refined streetwear. Swimdresses in water-sport spandex contrast with oversized opera coats in faux fur and nylon puffer. Accessories blend function with subversion—convertible Business Bags, hands-free pouches, and distorted formal footwear subvert expectations. Horoscope necklaces, faceless Geneva watches, and modular ski-goggle-inspired eyewear reinforce the house’s penchant for playful irreverence.

Balenciaga’s Winter 25 is a rigorous exercise in deconstruction and refinement, twisting the familiar into something unexpected while remaining true to its essence. A study of standards—redefined.



Energy From the Underground: Read Our Interview of grounds Designer Mikio Sakabe Following His AW25 Presentation @ PFW →

Mikio Sakabe is a designer, a teacher, and an experimenter. He runs two labels, MIKIOSAKABE and the footwear brand grounds, creating style that comes to life from Tokyo to the world. He is also a mentor for young Japanese designers, founding MeSchool, a fashion school that provides the same education opportunities in Japan that have been historically limited to Europe.

In a cold, concrete garage, buried behind metal fences and dusty staircases dimly lit by glowing exit signs, a crowd gathered on thin benches. Gold and silver emergency blankets distributed upon entry caught and refracted the light from camera flashes and the fluorescent whites that beamed from above. With the shrieks of a piano and the hums of a deep bass, the grounds Fall/Winter 25-26 show began.

grounds is known for its avant-garde and vibrant designs. Shoe’s understated uppers burst into large, cloud-like soles — a rejection of expectations and mass-market footwear. Sakabe has said he wants to “defy gravity.” With grounds, this has two meanings: the inflated, bubbling soles let the wearer float above roads and floors, but in fashion, gravity is not only physical, gravity is the pull of trends, the temptation to do what’s expected. Sakabe resists this, breaking new ground.

Sakabe continues his experimentation with his latest collection by taking the brand in a new direction. Previously, grounds could be best described as playful, fantastical. But in that sub-level garage the collection was industrial, festering, wonderfully unconventional, and pushing the limits of footwear. Styled by Betsy Johnson, the models began to march down the runway. The shoes where violently oversized, rubber layered on rubber, shoe melting with shoe, the bulbous clouds signature to Ground’s designs erupted out from under thin socks. Cables hung off from shoes like bungie cords wrapped around luggage. Leg warmers scrunched onto sneakers, and padded high socks wrapped around legs like medieval armor. There where large rubber soles like the treads on a tank, and some toe boxes curled upwards like a jester's boots.

The clothes were just as unconventional. Flowing wide legs spilled onto shoes, shoulder pads jutted dramatically from coats. Leather gloves, stacked belts, and oversized sunglasses adorned models with matted hair. Everything was unusual, dark — a collision of industrial and organic — yet, true to Sakabe’s touch, remarkably fun.

I caught up with Sakabe after the show for an interview. Read more.

Miu Miu's Fall/Winter 2024 Collection Traces Life From Girlhood to Womanhood

The Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2024 collection by Miuccia Prada draws inspiration from the span and scope of people’s lives, its shifting clothing types reflective of the development of character, both personal and universal to form a vocabulary of clothing, from childhood to adulthood.

Concurrent gestures express different moments in life — they coexist within single outfits, just as we each hold simultaneous memories of our own experience. Evocations of childhood are expressed with deliberately shrunken proportions, cropped sleeves, and round-toed shoes; archetypical clothing types that directly recall those worn in youth. Childhood is a moment of impulsive, natural rebellion, here reflected in the liberation of a dichotomous mixing of different codifications of dress, pajamas with outerwear, proper with improper, right with wrong. By contrast, adulthood is expressed through recognized signifiers of propriety and chic — gloves and handbags, brooches, tailoring, the little black dress. Like mnemonic devices, clothes can make us both think back, and project forwards.

Those components of duality and recollection find counterparts in materials and construction. Bonding and fusing meld together different fabrics and combine disparate garments, sweaters and cardigans in silk and cashmere, poplin skirts with knit, while shearling is treated to mimic precious fur. Silk dresses are creased and molded to cotton jersey sheaths, volumes reduced with the impression of the original garment remaining, a trace of its antecedent.

As the collection reconsiders characteristic signifiers of life through the vocabulary of clothing, so our literal vocabulary can be readdressed. Girlishness is a word we can revalue, from a pejorative gendered noun, anchored to age, to a universal idiom expressive of the strength of rebellion, a spirit of freedom and individuality, one attribute of a richer whole. Perceived as an inherent component of Miu Miu, it should be examined not as a lone trait but as a fundamental aspect of a wider temperament — a notion expressed through a cast of personalities who each embody this ever-shifting Miu Miu persona. They include Dara Allen, Ethel Cain, Guillaume Diop, Luther Ford, Angel Hazody, Kristin Scott Thoe, Qin Huilan, Little Simz, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Ángela Molina, who also features in Miu Miu Women’s Tales.

Contemporaneity allows divergent creative processes to arrive at paradoxically correlated results. The Palais d’Iéna is punctuated by video installations created by the Belgian-American artist Cécile B. Evans, art considered as a tool to enrich and expand conversation around people. Conceived independently of the collection, by chance the notions of the survival of memory in their art finds echo within the clothes. This is a shared language, one informed by the moment we all live within, a universal message nevertheless resonant with our unique experience.

Highlights From Balenciaga's Summer 24 Collection During Paris Fashion Week

 
 

A tribute to crafting the garment. A personal expression.

Balenciaga presents Summer ’24 from a red velvet-lined theatrical setting. Friends, family and colleagues are key influences. There is personal resonance. This show is a reflection of Demna’s world, and the identities that comprise his community.

It is scored by BFRND and explores a premise of sonic couture. The soundtrack features 3 aural elements – orchestra, piano and electronica – and a voiceover by Isabelle Huppert reciting instructions on how to make a tailored jacket from the manual La Veste Tailleur Homme, which was reformatted for the show invitation booklet. The audio was produced by Damien Quintard at Miraval Studios. Look 1 features Ella, the designer’s mother and first style inspiration, wearing an upcycled car coat. This piece is made of 3 deconstructed and repurposed vintage garments.

Tailoring consists of signature techniques and attitudes. A 2D effect is applied to create a flattened, straight shoulder without shoulder pads. Cuts are wide. Creases are added. Items are engineered in English wool with a couturier’s precision.

Daywear spans home to public settings. Long A-line skirts have removable panels that can be interchanged and removed for a shorter silhouette. Terry cloth bathrobes are used as coats. Jacket necklines are widened and dismantled so they can be worn off the shoulder and dropped on the arms with a nonchalant demeanour. A biker jacket is built of recycled deadstock leather panels. The clothing is presented as fundamental, pragmatic and stratified.

Eveningwear closes. Vinyl printed circle dresses in retro tablecloth floral schemes progress to upcycled gowns made of pieces sourced from vintage shops around Europe and the United States. The finale look features BFRND (the designer’s husband) wearing an amalgam of 7 wedding dresses from the pre-2000’s. They have been cut, tiered and piled together anew.

The collection holds sustainability innovations. Primarily, a lower-impact leather alternative called LUNAFORM™ is used in the construction of a floor-length bathrobe. It is the first time the material has been applied in fashion. It was specifically designed for Balenciaga. The animal and plastic-free textile is grown from fermented nanocellulose.

Accessories include the Rodeo, a new bag with a built-in open flap that gives the illusion of a classic leather carrier. Some are styled with heavy decorative chains. Stilettos and classic derbies obtain the function of a clutch. Other introductions include: textured leather Antwerp shoppers and a bag series imagined as soft and deconstructed luggage. A wallet takes the likeness of a passport, with inset leather boarding passes.

Footwear offers exaggerated proportions, tennis socks on heels and at-home comfort. Each shoe will be offered in a full range of both women’s and men’s sizes.

The new Cargo sneaker has oversized dimensions. 1,000 limited edition pairs – microfiber and mesh version – will be available directly after the show in an exclusive release.

This show represents what fashion is to Demna in its most personal way.

Read Our Interview Of Rave Review: The Vanguard Label That Is Diversifying The Metaverse With Upcycled Digital Cryptopanties →

A pink and purple ombre background with a pair of underwear in main focus. The underwear has a fur trim at top and a lace and cotton bottom with a bit of a animated piece on one side.

In 2017, Beckmans College of Design graduates Josephine Bergqvist and Livia Schück realized that they shared the same interest in sustainable fashion and thus was born their Stockholm-based label, Rave Review. After qualifying as a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize at Paris Fashion Week, receiving the Rising Star Prize by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Stockholm Prize by Nöjesguiden, the Bernadotte Art Award, and participating in the Gucci Film Festival, the label has established itself as a tour de force among a new crop of designers perfecting the art of transforming home textiles into desirable garments. Autre spoke with the vanguard design duo about their innovative design process, the role of digital fashion, and promoting sustainability on the blockchain. Read more.

Couture From Home: An Inside Look At The Making Of Alexander McQueen's Pre-SS21 Collection

AMQ Team - NA_PHOTO-2020-05-15-11-56-08.jpg

As all offices, ateliers and factories were closed over lockdown, the Alexander McQueen design team were sent stock fabric to their homes, which was over-printed, over-dyed and renewed.

This collection harks back to the early days of McQueen and a free, make-do-and-mend spirit. Garments – from signature sharply cut masculine-inspired tailoring to prom dresses - were cut by hand at kitchen tables, fabric was dip-dyed in gardens. A mid-twentieth century silhouette – sweetheart necklines, soft shoulders and overblown skirts – is complimented by a hyper-feminine colour palette in shades of pink, from albion to fuchsia rose, and red, punctuated by classic black. Asymmetric hand-draped silks and exploded bows nod to the haute couture tradition finishing an audaciously romantic look.

Look 26
A dress with off-the-shoulder drape and a tiered skirt in washed silk organza dip-dyed albion pink and black.

look 27
A double-layered tuxedo jacket in black wool silk with a wrapped bow peplum in albion pink micro-faille and cigarette trousers in black wool silk with a black satin tuxedo stripe.

 
 

look 28 
An oyster ruffle dress with a high neck and scalloped back in washed organza dip-dyed albion  pink and black.

 
 

look 29 
An asymmetric, floor-length dress with an exploded skirt volume in washed calico silk organza with sketchbook hand embroidery over a skeletal corset in nude silk tulle. The embroidery was inspired by drawings in the notebooks of the Alexander McQueen design studio teams.

Watch S.R. Studio's Debut "Apparitions" For Paris Haute Couture Week

California Couture. A collection created in America, reflecting America. Shot in Los Angeles on January 19, 2021, the last day of the Trump presidency. 

The Puritan and Pilgrims, traveling to America in the 17th century, viewed the United States as a “Redeemer Nation” — a belief in the country’s divinely ordained redemptive role in the world. It is a narrative being profoundly questioned today, inseparable from the enduring inequalities and ongoing threat of violence framed as patriotism.  

Responding to the history of the United States — imagined and real — Sterling Ruby explores the intersection of fashion, art, craft and culture for this first haute couture collection created at the invitation of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, Paris. Silhouettes, shapes, garment archetypes reference American heritage: Puritan collars, styles of dress inextricable from colonialism, neocolonialism, and religious persecution. These contrast with the uniforms of modern America: references to skate wear, workwear, business wear. 

creative direction and editing by Ruby

A Paris Fashion Week Diary From The Spring Summer 2019 Collections

photographs by Flo Kohl

Presentation of Yazbukey Fitness Club Spring Summer 2019 During Paris Fashion Week

A lithe group of dancers, acrobats and contortionists graced the stage for the high-voltage presentation of Yazbukey Fitness Club – surrealist designer, Yazbukey’s full-throttle spring/summer 2019 collection. Her latest works inspired by the current obsessions with fit culture, fitspo, and the like are a welcome alternative to the dominating athleisure forces as of late. photographs by Flo Kohl

Time and Nostalgia: A Review of Paris Fashion Week Men's Fall/Winter 2016 →

"It feels like every season I find myself almost wanting the Paris round of menswear shows to suck, just to change it up. I can make claims like, 'London is ground zero for cutting edge young menswear designers,' or 'Italian luxury is forever,' or 'New York is on the up and up,' but when it comes down to it, everything still pales in comparison to the lineup of designers that show their new duds in Paris." Adam Lehrer reviews the best of Paris Fashion Week Men's, from Raf Simons to Lemaire and everything in between. Click here to read the full review.

Read Our Round-Up Review of Paris Fashion Week 2015 →

Again, I will have to touch upon what makes this particular round unique to the industry and important for fashion. But honesty, do I actually need to make an argument concerning Paris and its total domination of conceptual fashion? OK, here’s an argument for you: Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yammamoto, Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela, Junya Wattanabe, Olivier Rousteing, and need I continue? A lot happens at Paris: some bad, some good, and some utterly transcendent. It’s too much to write about really. It’s the longest of the fashion weeks and it can be easy to forget about incredible shows mere days after they happened. Today as I am baffled yet excited over the announcement of Demna Gvasalia of Vetements being named creative director to Balenciaga while former Balenciaga godhead Nicolas Ghesquiere continues to alter the fabric of what we know to be Louis Vuitton, I almost forgot that Rick Owens put on the funniest and most conceptual collection of the week. So another season is over, and the buying begins. See you at the menswear shows. Click here to read the full review. Text by Adam Lehrer.