This Fall 2025 season, Haute Couture embraced its contradictions: raw yet refined, historical yet futuristic, to reassert its role as fashion’s most experimental stage.
Viktor & Rolf / Margiela / Iris Van Herpen
The Fall 2025 haute couture season spotlighted bold contrasts and reinvention. Schiaparelli’s “Back to the Future” merged surrealist drama—live crows and a “breathing heart”—with fluid, sculptural tailoring. Margiela, under John Galliano, blurred eras with ghostly silhouettes and deconstructed finery. Iris van Herpen’s Sympoiesis fused science and couture through kinetic ocean-inspired gowns and a living bioluminescent dress. Armani Privé explored seductive noir elegance in velvet and crystal, while Chanel honored pastoral roots with tweeds and feathers. Viktor & Rolf’s “Angry Birds” staged playful duality, pairing flamboyant feathered looks with minimalist doubles to question couture’s extremes.
SCHIAPARELLI
Schiaparelli’s Fall 2025 haute couture show, “Back to the Future”, reimagined Elsa Schiaparelli’s surrealist legacy with a stark black-and-white palette, live crows, and a beating “heart” necklace. Daniel Roseberry replaced rigid corsetry with elastic tailoring, sculptural padding, and dramatic silhouettes that moved fluidly. The collection blurred past and future, transforming couture into avant-garde performance art through bold surrealist details and archival craftsmanship.
MAISON MARGIELA
Glenn Martens’ Fall 2025 haute couture collection for Maison Margiela channels a gothic romanticism shaped by medieval Flemish references and cathedral-like, decaying textures. Upcycled materials, surreal masks and intricate craftsmanship pay tribute to Margiela’s legacy of conceptual and sustainable fashion. Staged in a haunting basement with peeling walls, the show delved into themes of mortality, memory and the poetry of imperfection.
BALENCIAGA
Balenciaga’s Fall 2025 haute couture show marked Demna’s final collection for the house, blending Old Hollywood glamour with sharp, sculptural tailoring. The casting mixed celebrities and unconventional models, highlighting body diversity and redefining couture silhouettes.
The presentation was intimate and stripped-back, focusing on craftsmanship and quiet drama. It served as a graceful farewell, bridging Balenciaga’s heritage with its next chapter.
IRIS VAN HERPEN
Iris van Herpen’s Fall 2025 haute couture collection, Sympoiesis, drew inspiration from ocean life with kinetic, jellyfish-like gowns and ethereal “air fabrics” that moved like living organisms. The highlight was a “living dress” glowing with 125 million bioluminescent algae, merging fashion and bio-science. Using 3D printing, lab-grown fibers, and sonar-inspired shoes, the collection blurred the line between couture, technology, and nature.
ARMANI PRIVÉ
Armani Privé’s Fall 2025 haute couture show, titled “Noir Séduisant,” explored the seductive power of black through sumptuous velvets, metallic silks, and shimmering crystal embellishments, revealing a deep, cinematic palette. Despite Giorgio Armani’s absence in Paris due to illness—his first missed show days before turning 91—he meticulously directed every detail remotely to ensure each sharply tailored tuxedo, sculptural evening gown, and velvet jodhpur embodied his vision of timeless, femme-fatale elegance. The collection balanced masculine- feminine codes with theatrical touches like oversized bows and glittering accents, reaffirming Armani’s legacy of refined glamour and masterful craftsmanship.
CHANEL
Chanel’s Fall 2025 haute couture collection, created by the in-house studio ahead of Matthieu Blazy’s arrival, paid tribute to Coco Chanel’s iconic 31 rue Cambon and pastoral inspirations with natural hues, tweeds, and mohair. Feathers, boucle textures, wheat motifs, and intricate floral embroideries highlighted the house’s artisanal mastery, grounded by unexpected thigh-high boots. Staged in the mirrored Salon d’Honneur of the Grand Palais, the intimate show honored Chanel’s legacy of practical elegance while marking a graceful transition for the brand’s future.
VIKTOR AND ROLF
Viktor and Rolf’s Fall 2025 haute couture collection, “Angry Birds,” played with dramatic contrasts by presenting each look in two versions: one wildly feathered and voluminous, the other deflated and minimal. Models walked in pairs to highlight this tension between fantasy and restraint, mixing humor with sharp architectural tailoring. The show questioned couture’s line between spectacle and wearability, blending theatrical artifice with refined craftsmanship.
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