As 2025 draws to a close, we take a moment to look back at a series of interviews that have taken place across the year in the style pages of Wallpaper*. There's a lot to look back on, from a wide-ranging conversation with Rick Owens on the occasion of his Paris retrospective ‘Temple of Love’ to the story behind production agency Bureau Betak’s three decades of creating transporting runway shows to Willy Chavarria’s rallying call to upend fashion’s old guard. Though these subjects are wide-ranging in their practices, what unites them is the idea of creative resilience and a singular approach.
Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* style team, the best fashion interviews from the last 12 months.
Rick Owens on creating a ‘Temple of Love’ – and why looking back is the way forward
In June, Wallpaper* sat down with Rick Owens for a wide-ranging conversation that coincided with the opening of his Paris retrospective, ‘Temple of Love’. Typically frank, fashion’s so-called Prince of Darkness talked everything from hitting the gym (‘working out is modern couture’) to love (‘love is the best word to put out there’), and why looking back can help you look forward. ‘Retrospective implies a decline, it makes you think about legacy and mortality and aging, and how long do you stay relevant, but how important is that?’ he said.
Entering the free-thinking world of Craig Green
Our October 2025 issue was titled the ‘Long View’ – a series of deep dives that celebrated print’s ability to tell stories. For fashion, we documented the creation of Craig Green’s S/S 2026 collection, from his London studio to the Paris runway. It ended up a celebration of his radical and unrestrained creative vision: ‘[Creativity] is how everything moves forward,’ Green said. ‘You need creative thought for things to progress, and for new things to happen. You have to have the freedom to make mistakes, to create work and not live in fear.’
READ: ‘You have to be fearless’: inside the free-thinking world of Craig Green
Willy Chavarria on why it’s time for a changing of the fashion guard
August 2025 was our US issue, which celebrated the country’s ‘creative spirit in turbulent times’. Part of that was a series of American voices who spoke on the country’s future, and their own ways of staying creative amid the noise. Designer and activist Willy Chavarria was one of them, speaking on why now – more than ever – we should be supporting direct action groups and dismantling fashion’s old hierarchies. ‘We’re still so stuck in the old guard of fashion – these people have been doing it for so long that they can’t see outside of their sphere,’ he said.
READ: Willy Chavarria: ‘We’re still so stuck in fashion‘s old guard’
Photographer Tyler Mitchell on reimagining the figure of the Black Dandy
Tyler Mitchell, who was the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of American Vogue, created a new ‘photo essay’ to coincide with the Costume Institute at The Met’s spring exhibition, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. We caught up with Mitchell in London as he showed a series of these images at Gagosian Burlington Arcade – their distinct aesthetic referencing the figure of the Black Dandy at the heart of the exhibition. ‘I understood the Black Dandy to be an archetype of masculinity that cleverly twisted conventions of male dress on its head,’ he said. ‘I always liked that idea.’
Silvia Venturini Fendi on luxury, lineage and 100 years of Fendi
In February, Fendi staged a blockbuster show to celebrate the house’s centenary, inaugurating a renovated Milanese HQ and inviting a cast of model muses past and present to walk the runway. After the departure of Kim Jones, Silvia Venturini Fendi – granddaughter of house founders Edoardo Fendi and Adele Casagrande – took over the co-ed collection’s design, seeking to evoke the spirit of Fendi without nostalgia. ‘I tried to avoid any precise reference because, to me, anniversaries are beautiful, but you don’t want it to be a retrospective or nostalgic,’ she said.
How Nicolas Di Felice is taking Courrèges into the future
At Courrèges, Nicolas Di Felice has a similar outlook – to evoke the space-age modernism of the house’s namesake André Courrèges without ‘copying the past’. It’s an approach, says Hannah Tindle – who met Di Felice in Paris for the March 2025 issue – that has ‘altered the trajectory of Courrèges, transforming the storied house in just five years from a once-overlooked legacy label into a name firmly cemented in fashion’s zeitgeist’. ‘In a creative sense, what can be difficult today is ignoring the noise around you, and staying true to who you are,’ he told her. ‘But as designers, it’s our duty to provide a unique point of view.’
READ: ‘Never copy the past’: how Nicolas Di Felice is taking Courrèges into the future
How Bureau Betak transformed the runway show – and made fashion magic
For the last 30 years, pioneering production company Bureau Betak has dreamt up some of the most transporting runway sets – a task which has evolved rapidly as the live stream becomes the norm. For the September 2025 issue, Hugo Macdonald met the people behind the magic. ‘Our currency is emotion and memory,’ said Guillaume Troncy, co-CEO. ‘We believe wholeheartedly in the power of human creativity.’
READ: How Bureau Betak transformed the runway show: ‘Our currency is emotion and memory’
Nick Waplington and Isaac Mizrahi on the creative chaos of 1990s fashion
A rare conversation between two of 1990s fashion’s definitive figures – photographer Nick Waplington and designer Isaac Mizrahi – saw the pair remember the creativity and chaos of the decade. Coinciding with an exhibition of behind-the-scenes images by Waplington at Mizrahi’s shows at Hamiltons Gallery in London, they talked to Dal Chodha about fashion’s heady heyday. ‘I remember it was the time of the supermodel,’ said Waplington. ‘We were all in our twenties, and so to be hanging out with them, with Isaac and his team, that was quite surreal.’
Torkwase Dyson breaks down her set design for ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’
The annual spring Costume Institute at The Met is notable for the accompanying Met Gala, though this year’s meditation on the Black Dandy – inspired by Monica L Miller’s book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity – proved equally intriguing. We caught up with artist Torkwase Dyson on her set design for the exhibition, which recalled her monolithic sculptures. ‘I clocked into how people have fashioned themselves as a manipulation of autonomy and ownership in which clothing is a resistance,’ she said of her inspiration.
Paolo Carzana speaks on his poetic London show – and why fashion is ‘meaningful’
Paolo Carzana is one of fashion’s most exciting young talents – a singular designer who does things on his own terms. The result is poetic collections which appear pulled through eras, like his latest show at the British Library earlier this year. Ahead of that, Orla Brennan caught up with the deep-thinking designer to talk about his unique process: ‘It sounds like such a cliché, but I feel like I don’t particularly fit in,’ he said. ‘My idea of what fashion is, and what it means, is perhaps quite different from the industry at large. To me, it’s meaningful, powerful, and completely unfrivolous.’
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The Bombardier Global 8000 flies faster and higher to make the most of your time in the airA wellness machine with wings: Bombardier’s new Global 8000 isn’t quite a spa in the sky, but the Canadian manufacturer reckons its flagship business jet will give your health a boost
