Looking Back At The Paris Fashion Week AW25 Shows

Sea­son after sea­son, Paris con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate the fash­ion month cal­en­dar with the most antic­i­pat­ed and dense­ly packed sched­ule of shows. Home to his­toric fash­ion hous­es and indus­try-defin­ing moments, the city remains the epi­cen­ter of sar­to­r­i­al influ­ence. But recent­ly, things have felt rel­a­tive­ly safe — even pre­dictable — as the reign of “qui­et lux­u­ry” has cast a mut­ed tone across run­ways. How­ev­er, AW25 arrived in the mid­dle of a sig­nif­i­cant shake up of cre­ative direc­tors ear­li­er this year, enshroud­ing the shows in eager anticipation.

Paris Fash­ion Week nev­er fails to pro­voke, inspire, and shift the con­ver­sa­tion. As always, it leaves us with plen­ty to think about and a pal­pa­ble sense of what’s next glim­mer­ing in its wake. Here are OVERDUE’s Autumn/Winter 2025 show high­lights from Paris Fash­ion Week.

Words by Ella Mansell

Dior

In a bat­tle between cloth­ing and mod­ern desires, who are you bet­ting on? This debate was at the cen­tre of Dior’s AW25 col­lec­tion. And, with Maria Grazia Chi­uri at the helm, you can trust fash­ion to reign supreme; Maria Grazia Chiuri’s eye for design is a thing of leg­ends in the fash­ion world, now in her ninth year at Dior.  A far cry from the French Maison’s 1940s roots, the AW25 col­lec­tion recon­fig­ured the present into a neon-lit, trans-uni­ver­sal stage, where form meta­mor­phoses, and to desire is to be hyp­no­tised. This set, devised by Amer­i­can artist and direc­tor, Robert Wil­son, sep­a­rat­ed the show into five mes­meris­ing acts, through which Dior “broke free from a pure­ly his­tor­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion.” Suave and sophis­ti­cat­ed defined the looks, with ivory ruf­fled shirts pro­trud­ing from black leather jack­ets, lace lay­ered upon lace, and intri­cate­ly embell­ished out­er­wear. Still, rem­nants of the past crept in, name­ly the J’Adore Dior t‑shirt, Lady Dior bag, and Orlan­do-inspired cart­wheel-ruff col­lar — wel­come returns.

Yohji Yamamo­to

Yohji Yamamoto’s AW25 col­lec­tion mas­ter­ful­ly played with the sil­hou­ettes and shapes we expect indi­vid­ual gar­ments to be. The Japan­ese design­er com­mand­ed a focus on out­er­wear (as assumed with an autumn/ win­ter col­lec­tion) but decon­struct­ed the archi­tec­tur­al forms. Coats were reimag­ined, dis­as­sem­bled, and reformed to cre­ate strik­ing, built-up shapes, their struc­ture fur­ther empha­sised by padded detail­ing at the knees and elbows. The design­er fused sport and fash­ion seam­less­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly through ath­let­ic fab­rics and a bold con­tin­u­a­tion of the brand’s ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Adi­das (nods to the three-striped logo appeared in the set design). A pin­stripe blaz­er clashed beau­ti­ful­ly with leather, show­cas­ing Yamamoto’s tal­ent for con­trast, while flash­es of roy­al pur­ple and hints of goth­ic flair added a moody, the­atri­cal edge to the collection’s lay­ered sophistication.

Tom Ford

With his debut show as the new cre­ative direc­tor of Tom Ford, Haider Ackermann’s aim was to “seduce”, and it’s cer­tain he did just that. With­in the thir­ty min­utes the Tom Ford AW25 show indulged its audi­ence with, it felt that time moved back by almost three decades, to the sul­try nineties, the height of Tom Ford’s Guc­ci era. Though, the gar­ments them­selves flirt­ed with an array of eras from Tom Ford’s his­to­ry: leather two pieces met silky and sub­tle acknowl­edge­ments of waist­lines. Dar­ing red patent trench coats declared roman­ti­cism, while suit-like dress­es with silk lapels sim­mered silent­ly (yet very vis­i­bly) down the run­way. If the clothes weren’t tes­ta­ment enough, a stand­ing ova­tion from Tom Ford him­self seals the deal: Ackerman’s era is a force to be reck­oned with.

Issey Miyake

Designed by Satoshi Kon­do, Issey Miyake’s AW25 col­lec­tion took sculp­tur­al inspi­ra­tion from Erwin Wurm’s [N]either [N]or works, trans­form­ing the run­way into a liv­ing instal­la­tion. At the Car­rousel du Lou­vre, eight per­form­ers opened the show with tai chi and dance, their qui­et, delib­er­ate move­ments silenc­ing the arriv­ing crowd and set­ting the tone for a col­lec­tion root­ed in trans­for­ma­tion. Design­er Satoshi Kon­do played with vol­ume mas­ter­ful­ly: gar­ments shift­ed from rigid to flu­id, like sculp­tures mid-for­ma­tion. Elec­tric blue made a strik­ing return, while lay­ered, tonal knitwear, a red prints to empha­sise drap­ing, and over­sized, draped sil­hou­ettes ground­ed the col­lec­tion in wear­able artistry. The result was both med­i­ta­tive and dra­mat­ic, a poet­ic fusion of motion and form.

Givenchy

After the streetwear-influ­ence that Matthew Williams grant­ed Givenchy for three years, Sarah Burton’s AW25 debut attrib­uted a chore­o­graphed moder­ni­ty to the brand’s ele­gant lega­cy. Informed enough to make com­plex ref­er­ences to the brand’s sto­ried past (the post-war, clean sil­hou­ettes, and a fem­i­nine take on util­i­tar­i­an tai­lor­ing) but sub­tle and cre­ative enough to rein­vent the way they appeared (pops of yel­low, mesh fab­rics, exposed waists) Givenchy’s AW25 arrived as a win­ter-toned breath of fresh air. Stand­out pieces include hour­glass struc­tured skirts and blaz­ers, and a peplum dress adorned with vin­tage mir­ror compacts.

Image cred­its to Show Stu­dio, cour­tesy of the brands.