On Friday evening, at The American Cathedral in Paris, Mexican-American menswear designer Willy Chavarria made his Paris Fashion Week debut—a fitting locale for the back-to-back CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year’s transatlantic entrance, to say the least. Amid the venue’s holy walls, Chavarria uncovered a Fall 2025 collection, titled “Tarantula,” powered by his distinctive vision: one that materializes his own historically disadvantaged signifiers—his queerness, his biracial identity as the descendant of an Irish-American mother and a Mexican-American father, and his working-class upbringing among immigrant farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley—and makes people with the same experiences feel awe-inspired. Romance ran rampant on Chavarria’s runway, with rose-adorned blazers, flower-powered Western hats and sensual takes on suiting.
Mid-show, J Balvin emerged in a bow-tied tux to perform an intimate solo. His partner, Valentina Ferrer , who recently co-starred in Chavarria’s Fall 2024 campaign alongside her Colombian reggaeton lover, watched with an endearing eye from the front row. Across workwear and sportswear, the designer’s distinctly emboldened proportions were lifted by Italian fabrics, including silks, velvets, bouclé and double-faced cashmere.
The color palette—a Baroque mixture of opulent golds, vivid blues, strong crimson and majestic plum—glowed on the designer’s eclectic cast, which, per usual, was filled with muscle men, short g.
