Power suits, thigh-high boots, dangerous glamour: these looks capture A/W 2025’s defining trends

Themes of glamour, danger and seduction ran through the A/W 2025 collections – from Saint Laurent’s thigh-high leather boots to ‘fur’ coats, animal prints and sculpted tailoring. As seen in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper* (on newsstands now), we capture the season’s sensual new mood in 12 objects and looks for men and women.

Power trip (top left)

Tropes of glamour – from bullet bras and brooches to red lips and fur coats – were riffed on by designers in unexpected and imaginative ways. At Alaïa, towering shearling ‘fur’ coats looped around models’ necklines and tassels jutted from skirt waistlines, while vast corsages sat flush to the neck. ‘The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,’ said creative director Pieter Mulier. ‘That inspired Azzedine, and it always inspires me – the strength of beauty.’

Thigh high (top right)

An imagined meeting between Robert Mapplethorpe and Yves Saint Laurent sparked Anthony Vaccarello’s menswear collection for Saint Laurent. Clashing the carnal desires of Mapplethorpe’s photography with the ‘bookish’ classicism of Yves Saint Laurent’s Parisian uniform, it was defined by thigh-grazing leather boots worn with 1980s-inspired tailoring. Referencing a ‘Robin Hood’ boot created by Yves Saint Laurent in 1963, they were perhaps the season’s most talked-about accessory, finding fans in Alexander Skarsgård and Pedro Pascal.

Buffer zone

The proliferation of faux fur – or fur reproductions in cleverly manipulated feathers or dyed shearling – suggested a desire for protection, whether against the elements or something more existential. Enveloping ‘yeti’ coats were most appealing in their hefty weight and size, from those at Dolce & Gabbana – evoking the thrown-on style of off-duty models – to Sportmax’s shaggy monochromatic overcoats. ‘Hyper-reinvention – where the ordinary becomes extraordinary,’ said the Italian label of the collection.

Swan song

After a five-year tenure, Kim Jones held his closing act as artistic director of Dior menswear amid a dramatic monochromatic mişe-en-scene that saw models descend an enormous optic white staircase and onto the runway – a play on the staircase at the house’s Avenue Montaigne address. Silhouettes took inspiration from the streamlined proportions of Christian Dior’s 1954 H-Line couture collection, while ribbon-like eye masks were tied at the back with a bow, evoking those found on the bottles of the Miss Dior fragrance.

Magic eye

Awaiting the arrival of incoming creative director Matthieu Blazy, Chanel has used recent collections to reinforce its most distinctive codes. For A/W 2025, it did so through a collection designed to ‘alter perceptions’, reimagining Chanel emblems using tricks of the eye – whether trompe l’oeil bows or a series of surreal accessories blown up in size or shrunk into miniature. These included a huge version of its signature pochette, a tiny quilted handbag, and this Borrowers-style string of pearls, one of which flips open to make a bag.

Dark arts

‘A menacing elegance’ is how Anthony Vaccarello defined the mood of his menswear collection for Saint Laurent, with its sense of danger, inflected with hints of kink. There was also Prada’s patchworked leather tailoring and raw slices of shearling ‘fur’; Lemaire’s leather foulards, worn as headscarves; and elongated trench coats and leather gloves at Ferragamo. The latter was presented by Maximilian Davis on a darkened runway strewn with red roses, a nod to the sensual staging of Pina Bausch’s Nelken, performed by the Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Wild ones

Designers embraced a wilder side this season, with Duran Lantink’s collection sporting a heady collage of zebra, leopard and tiger prints, some painted directly on to the models’ bodies, while Peter Copping’s Lanvin debut – an ode to the louche 1920s eveningwear of founder Jeanne Lanvin – featured oversized leopard-print coats with a soft, shaggy finish. At Sacai, Chitose Abe looked towards more fantastical realms, conjuring up the monsters of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are with brightly coloured flourishes of dyed shearling.

Hat trick

The hat is having something of a renaissance, appearing in various guises on recent runways. Signalling a move beyond the casual spirit of a cap or beanie, designers instead delighted in the nostalgic elegance of more classic millinery. At Sportmax, it was something between a pillbox and a panama, at Duran Lantink, there were amped-up versions of the trapper and woolly hats in his signature sculpted form, while Loro Piana featured a play on the cloche hat, a style synonymous with the liberatory dress codes of the 1920s.

Pump action

The pointed, heeled pump has been an archetype of femininity since its rise to prominence in the 1930s, a moment that coincided with the growing influence of Hollywood. Interpretations of the pump appeared throughout the collections, though it was those at Prada that proved most intriguing, featuring raw-cut edges as a riposte to perfection. Co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons noted it was part of an interrogation of femininity. ‘We asked ourselves, what is feminine beauty?’ said Mrs Prada. ‘It is a constant questioning.’

Carry all

This was the season of the XXL bag, perfect for transporting the necessities of contemporary life. Hermès offered up a new take on its ‘Haut à Courroies’ bag, which, in its roominess, can double as a weekend bag or plane carry-on. Stripped of the usual hardware, the various straps and clasps were replaced with ghostly embossing, as if a trace of what was there had been left behind. It came as part of a collection that artistic director Véronique Nichanian described as ‘a play between front and back, inside and out, visible and invisible’.

Body work

Stella McCartney staged her show at the ‘Stellacorp’ HQ – a surreal simulacrum of an office, complete with spinning chairs and desks, which was eventually invaded by underwear-clad pole dancers. Titled ‘Laptop to Lapdance’, playful juxtapositions ran through the collection, which saw the corporate uniform, from pencil skirts to blouses, shot through with a frisson of perversity. Collections from Acne Studios, Balenciaga and All-In presented similar riffs on office attire, the latter inspired by Mike Nichols’ 1988 movie Working Girl.

Take shape

Men’s tailoring this season was sculpted in silhouette, with a focus on the waist. Kim Jones’ final collection for Dior Men included a tuxedo-style riff on Christian Dior’s Bar jacket, while at Wooyoungmi, a reconsideration of eveningwear saw a carved waistline on a jacket adorned with 3D-appliqué flowers. Madame Woo, who staged the show in the opulent surrounds of Karl Lagerfeld’s former residence on Rue de l’Université, said she was thinking about ‘ideas of proper dressing’, reimagining formalwear in louche and sensual style.

Models: Hollie-May Saker at Models 1, Tristan Watkins at Menace Models. Casting: Dean Goodman. Hair: Anna Chapman at Julian Watson using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Kirstin Piggott at Julian Watson using Charlotte Tilbury. Manicure: Hayley Evans-Smith at Saint Luke using Byredo. Interiors: Olly Mason. Digi tech: Laura Heckford. Photography assistants: Tom Porter, Ed Philips. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor. Interiors coordinator: Archie Thomson. Production: Victoria Watkins at Birdhouse. Production assistant: Melina Grace Bryant. Retouching: Aly Studio.

A version of this story appears in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today