There was a clear overarching fashion trend that emerged on the AW25 catwalks at New York Fashion Week this season; some call it the return of minimalism, others the omnipresent influence of The Row, or still Quiet Luxury. But ultimately, the clothes that are really in fashion right now, it seems, are clothes for living in.
‘When we think about American fashion, I think a lot of people around the world wear fashion that really started here, because we really are the place where comfort became king,’ Kors said at a preview of his collection.
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It was exactly what Kors served up at his show, which kicked off the final day of New York Fashion Week, with a modern take on classic American sportswear. On his moodboard were pictures of Uma Thurman in the ‘90s, Sharon Stone in 2000, Lauren Hutton in the ‘70s, and Zoe Saldana three weeks ago. As Kors said, it’s a look that’s ‘timeless.’
On the runway this translated to trans-seasonal sumptuous leather coats, slouchy knits teamed with wool skirts that revealed modest flash of leg as models sashayed by, relaxed tailored pieces, and show-stopping shearling hats, slippers and coats — in a palette of grey, plum and bottle green. There was not a single figure-hugging dress in sight. ‘My woman lives in a city. She's on the street. She wants to move,’ Kors said. ‘There's no corsets, there's no boning, there's no bustiers. I think it's a costume from another time.’
At Coach, then, you might say Stuart Vevers showed the younger generation's answer to wearable luxury. ‘American sportswear always has an immediacy, it has something real, something grounded; at the same time it’s important to be creative to push forward and look to the future. For me I do that by really thinking about and listening to the next generation and what matters to them,’ he said backstage after the show.
A lot of the references on his moodboard for this collection were from when he first arrived in the US in 1996, he explained, which was set up to look like a ‘fantasy interior of New York City warehouse’. Skateboarding references inspired by Larry Clark’s 1995 film Kids were woven throughout the collection, from the shrunken leather jackets to the low-slung skater-style trousers. It also debuted a new sneaker, the SoHo, which looked as if they’d been on a really good night out.
Tory Burch, meanwhile, who brought the fashion crowd to the Museum of Modern Art for her AW25 show, started with the idea of twisted American classics; she literally wove the concept into the collection, which was peppered with twisted seams, twisted heels, and skirts that had twists in the way they were sewn together and draped on the body. Even the soundtrack twisted — voiced over by a woman who was laughing? Or crying? It was hard to tell. ‘I was thinking to celebrate American sportswear, but in a way that you create a new classic that women would want to covet and keep,’ Burch said backstage. Was the twisted theme a slight metaphor for what's happening in the world right now? ‘A little bit,’ Burch said, softly.
She also experimented with fabrications, with wool-esque sweatpants, corduroy cut-out dresses, and ‘worn’ looking brushed alpaca and fraying tweed. ‘I wanted you to take a second glance where you look at something and it seems more straightforward than it is, and then you look closer and it has more depth.’
She added: ‘I really want to think about confidence in women. They want to obviously look chic and beautiful, but they also want to feel powerful, and that's something I spent a lot of time thinking about. Because I think women are the answer.’
Thom Browne closed out the week at The Shed’s Griffin Theater, building a dream-like fantasy world, where his sculptural creations paraded below 2,000 origami paper birds hanging from the sky. The collection itself was signature TB, full of twists on the uniform; this season heritage tweeds were mixed in with collegiate references, pleated silks, and a trompe l'oeil dress crafted from over 3,000 Swavorski crystals; the show-stopping finale look — the intricately beaded tweed blazer over the voluminous ballgown-esque gingham skirt — had a couture-like sensibility.
In the show notes, Browne explained two models, or 'caged love birds', inside a giant birdcage at the centre of the room, wondered, 'How marvelous would it be, to be exactly who we wish to be?' The show's underlying message, though, was one of hope, not entrapment — a message that, considering the broader socio-political backdrop this season, felt like a particularly moving note to end the shows on.
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