The 12 top trends of the spring 2025 collections speak not to politics, but to the idea of soft power—of using fashion to influence, beguile, charm, seduce, and bewitch. The season as a whole felt uplifting, positive, and women-friendly; the overall message being, as Nicole Phelps put it: “You don’t have to renounce your strength to be feminine.” Or, as Muhammed Ali so memorably put it: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
” Fashion can take us places; one of designers’ chosen destinations for spring was cloud nine. This was a season in which air was the predominant element and ethereality abounded. Chiffons floated and jerseys swung in unison with the body—movement being another key theme.
Cloud-like dresses were buoyed with stuffing at Comme des Garçons and Torishéju, or actually inflated as they did at Anrealage; elsewhere, more traditional balloon skirts puffed out the picture. At the same time, fall’s fascination with 2D flatness evolved to the point where many garments seemed to defy gravity. This is an aesthetic set in motion seasons ago by Glenn Martens’s use of wire at Y/Project and Demna’s “windswept” couture look.
Designers this season encouraged a willing suspension of disbelief, meaning an openness to a sense of wonder—and not just when it came to the clothes. At Bottega Veneta, chairs were magicked into squishy creatures, and backstage Matthieu Blazy showcased a copy of Richard Scarry’s Biggest Word Book Ever with a custom .