There’s an incredibly potent, sensual energy about this latest Courrèges collection by Nicolas Di Felice. While the spring-summer 2025 menswear collection drew in part from a series of illustrations of a Courrèges summer 1970 collection of groovy cut-out tunics and banded detailing on short dresses, the contemporary designer is far from being a nostalgia-ist, pushing the brand into future, not futurism. “I really need to work the clothes on the body. Something might seem simple,” he went on to say, “but we really do fit everything; we work on them – the jackets, the skirts, the trenches, even the simplest pieces – from A to Z.” And it really shows this season, especially in the masterfully engineered bibbed tops (the front panels of fabric supported by a body of invisible mesh) worn with killer, kicky pants. Then, there’s all the scuba-inspired leatherwork that’s dangerously chic. Also, note the collars of Di Felice’s trenches in cotton and leather (just soooooo good) falling onto one shoulder and sleeve; the same detailing gets added to roomier, blouson versions cropped at the hips. And that 1970 collection of Andre Courrèges’ provides the motif of a looped band over the chest, which delivers a geometric flash of skin on tanks and dresses that work right across the gender spectrum.
Lemaire‘s spring-summer 2025 collection was galore of understated sensuality. Soft tailoring revisited in light, supple fabrics, workwear imagined in refined materials, loose-fitting cuts following fitted lines and slender attitudes that enrich the wardrobe with a new sense of seductiveness. Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran played with sexy straps: they transformed outerwear into nonchalantly gestured shoulder accessory; they were integrated with knitted mini-dresses in form of garters that held up matching thigh-highs. I love to see these cheeky moments the brand surprises its loyal fan-base with (remember the butt bags?). The designers indulged in more quirky, flirty details, like the beaded body jewelry adorning a fluid dress or a guy’s cowboy black shirt pierced with small rings.
Here are couple of great Lemaire pieces you can shop now…
Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen are in their experimentation mode. No longer bound to uncompromising minimalism they’ve established and refined to razor-sharp perfection throughout the years, they are confidently letting not-that-easy-to-digest edginess to The Row‘s world. Or maybe the most stylish twins in the world are taking a look back at their culture-shifting style from the 2000s? @eljosecriales started that discourse by comparing spring-summer 2025’s grey melange sweater worn over a white ivory slip dress worn over washed blue pants to one of Mary-Kate’s red carpet looks from 2004 that similarly played with layers in a cool, spontaneous, boho manner. That’s the definition of “auto-referential“! Most of the new season offering feels like a very instinctual play with clothes and accessories, never matching or fitting “as it should“, but striking an intriguing balance. Phoebe Philo’s late years at Céline had a similar essence, but the Olsens aren’t copying the British designer as they used to back in the day – they’re doing their own, authentic thing. As they should – they are by now very mature designers, as The Row is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary (the twins started with a t-shirt). And their just-opened shop in Amagansett will certainly sell these plaid shirts, breezy dresses, denim shirts and future-vintage evening dresses like hot buns. Oh, to be awfully rich and buy The Row like daily apparel!
There’s an appealing, sensually charged toughness about Magda Butrym’s collection for resort 2025. The Polish designer’s smokey-eyed and red-lipped glamazons are in a dreamworld, but one that isn’t a saccharine wonderland. A sense of enigmatic chic informs the entire line-up, blurring the lines between daywear and eveningwear, feminine and masculine, precious and utilitarian. The collection’s brave, tough chic mood finds inspiration in cinematic depictions of women in West Berlin during the late 1970s, from Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake to Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession“. The first, a perplexing story of a witchy dance school and its female-only cadre and students, informs the collection’s color palette. Rusty-tones, overcast-greens and earthy-ecrus meet intoxicating blood-red – the color of lipstick on the pale faces of Madame Blanc’s dancers, and their nail polish, and the unsettling interiors of the Tanz Akademie. In Possession, the high-pitched fever dream directed by the renowned Polish provocateur, Isabelle Adjani’s character Anna – entangled in an illicit, forbidden romance – storms metro stations and soc-realist neighborhoods in utilitarian, yet feminine dress-coats. These two so female-centered films deliver an unobvious outlook on women, their emotions, sensuality, and most importantly, their sacred power. The lookbook, photographed by Vitali Gelwich, was captured inside Warsaw’s iconic Dom Pod Orłami (“House Under Eagles”). This modernist pearl keeps in its thick, marble walls many untold secrets, from pre-war bank affairs to wild raves of the 1990s. Who knows what rituals happened down these long corridors and hidden staircases? The brute, monumental beauty of the building charges the lookbook with certain mysterious, elusive, even esoteric ambience, one that can be perceived in Guadagnino and Żuławski’s cinematic universes.
In all that highly feminine, yet commanding mood the designer is channeling and refining in her latest offerings, an assortment of no-nonsense, investment-worthy garments: a drab olive-brown jacket with a high, chin-grazing collar styled with matching pair of knitted panties;sensational outerwear in broad-shouldered cut; pleated, wool pants refined by the designer to perfection. But there’s also place for unabashed glam: the eternal style of Milanese sciuras unexpectedly dialogues with the unsung chic of Old Warsaw’s starlets like Zula through a retro-imbued overlap that comes evident in faux fur stoles wrapped around the shoulders, worn over seductive, ruched dresses with built-in corsets. Meanwhile, the two finale pieces of the collection are hooded black dresses in either above-the-knee or floor-sweeping length. They intrigue with minimalist sharpness of cut and the seductive depth of plunging necklines, subverting monastic connotations. As usual in case of Butrym’s style vocabulary, there’s a charming nod to her Slavic heritage. For resort, it comes in form of hand-made lace from Koniaków which is very proudly used in a crocheted body with sharp shoulder-pads, an apron-like skirt, shopper bags, and next season’s ultimate it-accessory: bonnets.
Psst… have you seen the designer’s first ever flagship store that she opened last month in Warsaw? Read about it right here!
Need a Magda Butrym wardrobe update? I’ve got you covered.
It’s a new dawn for Valentino. Gone are the days of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s minimalist sensibility and sharpness of cut. Alessandro Michele’s “surprise” debut collection for resort 2025 is an unabashed return to Valentino Garavani’s 1960s and 1970s opulence and over-the-topness. Is this nostalgia something people really want in 2024? Many wrongfully described the collection as “so Gucci”. The deja vu feeling is valid, but rather it’s “so Alessandro Michele”. But let’s be honest, this line-up could easily pass as any of Michele’s previous collections for the other Italian brand, and you’re really not the only one constantly mistyping Gucci instead of Valentino. More than 170 looks, none really memorable or distinct, is either a result of Michele’s prolificness or his overt maximalism – something I thought he would rethink and refine during his hiatus. When the designer arrived at Gucci, his debut collection – contrived at light speed pace – was a revolution-in-the-making and it shifted the way people dress for seasons ahead. His Valentino debut lacks that radicalness, and feels like a missed opportunity in making a strong point. The dense, thick retromania of this collection makes one feel simply tired.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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