Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Mar 11, 2024
The fashion week marathon for next winter’s women’s ready-to-wear collections recently ended in Paris, after its usual stops in New York, London and Milan. Quiet luxury continues to be the driving trend for Fall/Winter 2024-25, but will feature increasingly sophisticated looks and even greater creativity in terms of construction and silhouettes, with bright colours making an appearance. Black, grey and brown remained the dominant hues, but many collections also introduced a palette of vibrant autumnal shades, always within total looks: golden yellow, red, mustard beige, maroon, purple, lime green and khaki. The looks included maxi coats, capes, and suits galore, alongside uber-feminine, sensual outfits characterised by lace and sheer effects, while designers tapped accessories and knitwear for their most inventive creations.
1) Chic minimalism
The quiet luxury aesthetic has clearly evolved, designers shifting towards more sophisticated, highly curated looks. The runways teemed with refined elegance, often enhanced by accessories like jewellery and opera gloves. The focus was on outerwear, with overcoats, many of them decorated with crystals, coat-dresses and trench coats, as well as tailored items like suits, jacket-and-skirt sets, mid-length skirts, ample trousers, and plenty of blazers. The silhouettes were often rounded across the shoulders and sleeves, with cinched hourglass waists echoing Dior’s celebrated Bar suit. All of this in fine, beautiful fabrics, with plenty of slightly retro salt-and-pepper marled wool, even for evening outfits.
2) Power shoulders
The XXL volumes seen in recent years are gradually shrinking, but the upper body remains a key point. Designers have paid plenty of attention to the neck, shoulders and even arms, enhancing and underlining them with puffed-up, warrior-like volumes, or by using soft materials in ultra-protective mode. Padded and knitted cocooning tops, textural effects, enveloping scarves, burgeoning sleeves and micro bolero jackets: designers used every trick in the book to emphasise the upper body, including shrugs equipped with detachable sleeves, seen in several collections.
3) Capes
The latest round of runway shows put outerwear centre-stage, once again presenting a plethora of maxi coats and longline overcoats to the ankles, and a profusion of extremely snug protective capes, in all size and materials. The choice was extensive, ranging from the highly popular pelerine, seen at Chloé, to the classic capes featured by Marie Adam-Leenaerdt and Marni, the majestic ones by Antonio Marras, and chic evening ones. There were also hybrid capes incorporated in a coat or wraparound ones like scarves (at Del Core and Jil Sander), ponchos (at Leonard), large stoles, and throws swathed around the body.
4) Unfolding effects
Designers have rivalled in creativity to innovate garment construction this season, often creating unfolding effects. Jackets and tops extended into fabric panels climbing up to the neck. Dresses and coats that looked like protective covers opened like petals, as though folding back on themselves. Corset tops and jackets were reversible or worn upside-down, the neck becoming the waist, and vice versa. Other tops were buttoned or open at the back, leaving it bare. Sculptural clothes came in asymmetric, organic draped fabrics. Trompe-l’œil sleeved tops looking like aprons featured at Balenciaga and Stella McCartney.
5) Knitted dresses and oversize knitwear
Knitted items will be ubiquitous in next winter’s wardrobe, the wool finished with all kinds of treatments (worsted, washed, felted, bouclé, plaited etc.), preferably with shaggy, voluminous effects, while cable-knit sweaters will feature prominently. Knitted dresses will be making a come-back, including some superb evening-dress versions, as seen at Del Core, and distressed grunge-style outfits.
6) Leopard prints
Feline prints are one of next season’s themes. They featured in total looks and in one-off items, like a dress, a coat, a t-shirt, a pair of shoes or tights. Fake fur was widely used, adding a twist to the monochrome looks seen in abundance on the runways. Leopard prints also came in red and black.
7) Bodysuits
The bodysuit is next winter’s must-have item. It is a practical garment easily combined with skirts and trousers as a sort of tank top, and can also be worn as the single statement item under a coat. Designers have given it wide currency, reinventing it in countless new ways and materials. Like a skin-tight corset or an anorak at Duran Lantink, in a latex version at Avellano, and unbuttoned over a pair of trousers at Fendi. The turtleneck bodysuit was especially popular, seen in a knitted version at Gauchere, Rick Owens and N°21, and long-sleeved in leather at Acne Studio. Coperni turned all its tops into bodysuits, from blazer to trench coat, dinner jacket and biker jacket.
8) Boudoir style
The Fall/Winter 2024-25 season has decreed the return of an ultra-feminine style, evident in the increasingly daring necklines, the plethora of bows, sheer effects and the ever-present lace, with black lace tights notably thriving.
Above all, the collections placed great emphasis on sensual outfits in a lingerie register, with corsets, bodices, bustiers and suspenders, the latter back in force in women’s wardrobes, even when simply cited as a cheeky reference, for example in the bottom part of a t-shirt. Combined with the leopard-print theme, these boudoir-style outfits riffed on a gangster moll trend, taking the provocative superwoman idea to extremes.
9) Hoods and boots
Hoods, balaclavas, turbans, oversize cowls, swimming caps, and scarves incorporated in the clothes: head coverings that enveloped the entire head were everywhere. The same went for boots, notably thigh-high ones. A favourite were socks and tights fused to the boots. Balenciaga featured a grunge look with distressed, fraying tights – the ultimate chic.
10) The baguette
That quintessentially French icon, the baguette, has never been more in vogue! In the guise of a leather handbag, as at Moschino, or carried in all kinds of creative packaging, the long, slim golden loaf of bread cropped up as a subliminal message, an invitation to go back to normality. Baguettes also featured at the Undercover and Marine Serre shows to advocate a highly wearable fashion designed for everyday living.
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