The New York Round Up

The best moments from New York Fash­ion Week.

Open­ing Image Cour­tesy of Michael Kors

Words Leelou Reboh

As per tra­di­tion, New York Fash­ion Week marked the begin­ning of the Autumn/Winter sea­son. Kick­ing off fash­ion month with a series of events, each more glam­orous than the last, NYFW set the tone for a sea­son of lav­ish neu­trals and del­i­cate furs, with a touch of edgi­ness that per­fect­ly cap­tured the bustling ener­gy of the city. From ele­vat­ed office wear to dis­tressed den­im, there was a col­lec­tion for every taste and desire. To nav­i­gate the busy cal­en­dar of 54 on-sched­ule shows, the OVERDUE team com­piled a list of their top highlights.

Tory Burch

Tory Burch’s AW25 paid homage to Amer­i­can clas­sics. Ele­vat­ing ele­ments of tra­di­tion­al sportswear—from sleeve­less polos and quar­ter-zip sweaters, to track­suits and sweatpants—and com­bin­ing them with ele­gant tai­lor­ing, the Tory Burch woman was in pur­suit of time­less­ness over the ephemer­al nature of trends. Though neu­trals were a clear favourite this sea­son, occa­sion­al flash­es of bright pri­ma­ry colours brought con­trast to the over­all earthy palette of the col­lec­tion. Suit­able from day to night, ver­sa­til­i­ty was at the heart of the looks. Com­fort­able sweats tran­scend­ed the realm of sports­wear into effort­less chic­ness, and the tra­di­tion­al use of util­i­tar­i­an leather jack­ets was reimag­ined for evening wear with the addi­tion of fur trims and sharply tai­lored trousers. The over­ar­ch­ing mes­sage of the col­lec­tion was clear: Autumn/Winter 2025 was for the inde­pen­dent woman strut­ting about in the metrop­o­lis; a feel­ing iter­at­ed by Burch her­self in her show notes, stat­ing “women are defin­ing ‘clas­sic’ for themselves”.

Thom Browne

It wasn’t mod­els but Thom Browne’s ‘odd birds’ that sul­tri­ly lin­gered in their high heels down the run­way under the inquis­i­tive gaze of two glam­orous ornithol­o­gists. At the cen­tre stage of the cat­walk fea­tur­ing no few­er than 2000 origa­mi paper birds, AW25 recalled the sto­ry of these caged feath­ered crea­tures long­ing for the free­dom to be who­ev­er they wish to be. As the vision sunk in, the hybrid crea­tures, part ani­mal, part beau­ti­ful­ly human, emerged adorned in iter­a­tions of the designer’s sig­na­ture uniform—a more fash­ion­able ver­sion of your tra­di­tion­al pri­vate school attire. Their seri­ous, almost aca­d­e­m­ic air, was imbued with the play­ful­ness of con­trast­ing tex­tures and prints. Jux­ta­pos­ing var­i­ous types of Eng­lish-woven tweeds over check­ered shirts, and embell­ish­ing coats and jack­ets with bird embroi­deries, the col­lec­tion wasn’t short of unex­pect­ed pat­tern com­bi­na­tions while pre­serv­ing Browne’s strong cre­ative iden­ti­ty. Nods to quin­tes­sen­tial Amer­i­can col­le­giate appar­el appeared in the form of lux­u­ri­ous suede bomber jack­ets and var­si­ty-type sweaters and cardi­gans. The mod­els-turned-birds weren’t afraid to spread their wings and take up space on the cat­walk: sil­hou­ettes were bold and struc­tur­al, accen­tu­at­ing strong shoul­ders and widen­ing hips with bell-shaped dress­es, as cocoon-like coats felt like a pro­tec­tive enve­lope, shield­ing them through­out their jour­ney towards com­plete self-expression.

Luar

Luar’s ‘El Pato’ was a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the resilience of queer youth among Latin Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties. Domini­can Amer­i­can design­er Raul Lopez cre­at­ed his Autumn/Winter 2025 col­lec­tion as an ode to the char­ac­ter of Simón—his flam­boy­ance, his man­ner­isms, his clothes. In his show notes, Lopez writes “it was like a mir­ror I had to see every time I stepped out”, and defi­ant­ly adds, “now I know that the real mar­icón (Span­ish slang for a ‘sis­sy’) is you”. On the run­way, the gar­ments were loud and bold. After stay­ing silent for so long, Lopez was shout­ing at those who looked down upon him, to watch. Roles were reversed at times: men wore thigh-high boots, skirts, and skimpy cat­suits, while the women were wore match­ing wool or den­im sets with 80s shoul­ders. Acces­sories made a state­ment through­out the col­lec­tion, unafraid to take up space and ruf­fle feath­ers with the con­ser­vatism of stereo­typ­i­cal gen­der roles. Mod­els were adorned with extrav­a­gant head­wear, either plumed or bead­ed. Though restrained in its colour choice of dark blues, blacks, greys and browns, that doesn’t mean Autumn/Winter 2025 was mak­ing itself small. On the con­trary, Luar demon­strat­ed that strong shapes and sil­hou­ettes are all one needs to express one­self ful­ly, and be respect­ed at last.

Calvin Klein

This sea­son marked Calvin Klein’s return to the run­way after an almost sev­en-year hia­tus fol­low­ing the depar­ture of the label’s pre­vi­ous cre­ative direc­tor, Raf Simons. Debut­ing as the first woman to ever hold the title of cre­ative direc­tor at Calvin Klein, Veron­i­ca Leoni—formerly at The Row, Jil Sander, Phoebe Philo’s Celine, and founder of her own label Quira—was appoint­ed in hopes of reviv­ing the brand’s posi­tion with­in the fash­ion mar­ket. “My goal is to define an ulti­mate and defin­i­tive expres­sion of mon­u­men­tal min­i­mal­ism and pure­ness through shape and craft,” the design­er explained in the press release. A colos­sal yet excit­ing task for Leoni, whose expe­ri­ence work­ing for some of the most pres­ti­gious min­i­mal­ist labels should be great­ly ben­e­fi­cial. Show­cas­ing impec­ca­ble crafts­man­ship at the fore­front of the vision for this lat­est col­lec­tion, the sil­hou­ettes were clean and clas­sic, with a mod­ern twist, while the colour palette remained neu­tral as per Mr. Klein’s pref­er­ence through­out his own work. This first col­lec­tion back on the run­way fea­tured all the essentials—trench coats, 5‑pocket trousers, crom­bies, silk blous­es, suits, high heels and square-toe flats, with­out for­get­ting high-end eye­wear and leather goods. Though arguably Autumn/Winter 2025 was not one for inno­va­tion, it def­i­nite­ly was about rein­ven­tion, and lay­ing down a foun­da­tion of immac­u­late qual­i­ty and tech­nique for what is to come.

Car­oli­na Herrera

Ele­gant, enchant­i­ng, and mag­i­cal: three words that per­fect­ly encap­su­late Car­oli­na Herrera’s Autumn/Winter 2025 col­lec­tion. Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from Hal Ashby’s 1979 film Being There, cre­ative direc­tor Wes Gor­don explained in his show notes that this col­lec­tion was all about explor­ing the idea of ephemer­al beau­ty. Act­ing as a metaphor for how the design­er wish­es for all to tend to their garments—with the same care that one would ded­i­cate to their flower garden—the looks also more lit­er­al­ly rep­re­sent­ed Gordon’s intent. Flow­ers emerged as pat­terns, brooches, 3D appliqués, and jacquard, while the colours of the collection—deep reds, petrol and light blues, and fuschias—were rem­i­nis­cent of the shades of the flower beds around spring time. At times, rain is nec­es­sary for flow­ers to bloom, and trans­lat­ed to the run­way into glis­ten­ing sequin dress­es nod­ding to the wet sheen found on flower petals after a driz­zle. The looks, akin to nature, blos­somed more extrav­a­gant: del­i­cate lace replaced tweeds and silks, while flow­ers grew from the mod­els’ hips, chests and shoul­ders. The show cul­mi­nat­ed in sheer ensem­bles, adding a sul­try touch to the over­all sig­na­ture Car­oli­na Her­rera sil­hou­ettes of the show. 

Coach

Cool girls (and guys) wear Coach. Since its rebrand, the label has evolved beyond just pro­duc­ing cov­et­ed It-bags—its cloth­ing now demands atten­tion, too. Real­ly, all you need is a killer jack­et and unique graph­ic T‑shirt to make a fash­ion­able out­fit. Show­cas­ing a vast array of trendy outerwear—from cropped bomber jack­ets to floor-length coats that could’ve been worn by Neo from the Matrix—the brand demon­strat­ed its crafts­man­ship in work­ing with leather beyond acces­sories. But the Coach girl is more than trendy; she can be sexy too. When she goes out, she trades her trust­ed uni­form of bag­gy pants and plain top for sheer tunics lay­ered over dis­tressed denim—but she will nev­er give up her ted­dy slip­pers. The moody palette of navy and blue soft­ened into creamy hues and pow­der pink only to revert to black and var­i­ous shades of brown. Of course, acces­sories were a must, as Coach wouldn’t be Coach with­out its sig­na­ture bags. Even purs­es deserved their own acces­sories, and were adorned with plushy key­chains or sweaters tied around their han­dles. When the hand­bag becomes too incon­ve­nient, the Coach girl can fit all of her essen­tials in a minia­ture purse she wears around her neck. In sum, Coach brought light­ness and fun to the cat­walk, remind­ing us all that fash­ion doesn’t have to be extrav­a­gant all the time.

Michael Kors

This sea­son, Micheal Kors brought its office par­ty to the run­way. Still dressed up in their work attire, mod­els gave office chic took on a whole new mean­ing. The show opened with a refined take on clas­sic cor­po­rate attire, as ini­tial looks pre­served a mut­ed colour palette and clas­sic sil­hou­ettes like blaz­ers, trench coats, and but­ton down shirts—though decon­struct­ed or avail­able in leather and leop­ard print for a sex­i­er edge—remained preva­lent through­out the col­lec­tion. A season’s favourite, faux fur trims and jack­ets were lay­ered over midi pleat­ed skirts and suit trousers. From the office to the club, looks mor­phed into evening wear, with a series of sequin-embell­ished long dress­es, acces­sorised by well-craft­ed sim­ple leather pumps and boots. Time­less and ver­sa­tile, Michael Kors reaf­firmed that office wear can be both time­less and ver­sa­tile, where sub­tle details ele­vate the look.