What is the solution to an overall slowdown in luxury fashion spending? Most luxury brands seem to have chosen to push harder in the direction of opulence. Colours, fabrics, artisanry—the works!—are at the core of the Spring/Summer 2025 menswear collections, ostensibly to inspire and attract customers to get their money’s worth on fashion pieces once more.
Some designs capture attention on the merits of colour, print or an interesting design element. Others may require the clever application of materials and techniques to appeal to the visual and tactile senses. Whichever the case, each individual piece is its own statement. This means a shirt or a pair of trousers would be an easy tell to its origins without needing to be in a full runway look. The best part? Because originality and make are emphasised more than ever, fast fashion copies can’t hold a candle to the originals.
Fashion is back, and we’re all the better for it.
You can always count on fashion to be obsessed with youth and uniforms. While adopting a schoolboy aesthetic isn’t new by any means—think of brands like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger—the Spring/Summer 2025 versions aren’t as in-your-face. If anything, they are softer nods to the look and fashioned to be more deconstructed with elements that are synonymous with prep school uniforms.
Fendi’s Spring/Summer 2025 menswear collection is built around a collegiate aesthetic (the House has even created a Fendi crest made out of its iconic symbols), transforming its signature Pequin stripes into rugby-esque polo knits. The collection also features tailoring paired with ties but juxtaposed with more rugged pieces such as denim jackets—much like how Louis Vuitton interprets its idea of modern prep.
V-neck sweaters and vests, cardigans and varsity jackets are key elements to the look, but this time, worn rakishly with such insouciance that no decent student would be allowed to wear to school. At Bottega Veneta, it’s matching sweats with a statement sweater vest, while Kenzo pairs its tiger-patch varsity jacket with an embroidered crochet top—not quite prep school approved, but stylish all the same.
It’s time to throw away the rule book on how a tie should be worn. Forget about the perfect length (if you’re wondering, it should just touch your belt) or what knot works best, because while brands are making a clear push for the return of the tie, they’re hardly conventional in execution.
At the simplest proposal, brands like Amiri and Louis Vuitton are matching ties to the colour of shirts. It’s a clever way of wearing one without the need to mull over if the pairing matches, especially when the tie is made and designed to match. But if you’re sticking to ties you already have on hand, Wooyoungmi proposes to simply tuck them into trousers for an easy and quick fix to the perennial length dilemma.
Masterful at crafting textural pieces, Matthieu Blazy’s tie offerings at Bottega Veneta are so skinny and twisted that they hardly resemble ties at all—more like skinny strips of fabric tied using the four-in-hand method. The same is seen at Valentino where Alessandro Michele substitutes the traditional tie for a scarf to better fit the collection’s more dramatic, vintage-inspired nuances. The bottomline: a tie is a tie if you wear it like one.
There’s nothing “quiet” about Ralph Lauren Purple Label. The brand has built such a distinct look that to call it anything close to “quiet luxury” does a disservice to the aesthetic and lifestyle it’s known for.
For Spring/Summer 2025, Ralph Lauren looked to Cannes to create a collection that extends its tailoring-meets-sportswear approach to settings that would resemble parties along the French Riviera. While the colours echo the calmness of the sea, magnificent paisley prints in shades of blue dominate, even in the smallest incarnation. They appear on everything from ties to shorts to a tuxedo jacket, ripe for the season.
And if the nautical-inspired pieces in the collection aren’t enough to convince you to book that next trip to an island getaway, the pastel co-ords may have you needing to capture the outfit against the serenity of a Maldivian sunset.
But even if no island visit is on the cards, the collection’s Riviera theme only serves as an inspiration. The pieces are actually year-round staples you’d want to wear over and over again. Like the man behind the brand, the collection is an extension of the Ralph Lauren lifestyle and the pieces serve to complement it.
No matter how you feel about Mocha Mousse being the Pantone Color Institute’s choice for colour of the year, there’s no denying that we’re already seeing the colour pervading fashion in a multitude of ways. As a neutral colour, brown has always been present in every collection season after season. But never have we seen such a consensus for brown-hued tailoring across almost every luxury fashion brand than in the Spring/Summer 2025.
Brunello Cucinelli freshens up its handsome double-breasted suit in a chocolate brown that allows it to be worn casually and formally, while Fendi goes the monochromatic route with brown shades that seamlessly wash over suiting and languid shirting in one single look. Even Sean Suen gets in on the action with a Chinese-inspired two-piece designed with a stand collar. And in true Lee McQueen flair, creative director Sean McGirr opts for a brown Prince of Wales check to create a sharp suit designed with a dramatic draped front closure.
It’s not only suiting that is getting drenched in the colour of the year. Tailored separates, such as those by Tod’s, make for plenty of ways to get your Mocha Mousse if wearing a suit isn’t for you. Then, there’s Zegna and its splendid overshirt option that would look equally smart with a white tee as it would with a pair of rust-coloured trousers.
When we talk about statement pieces, trousers hardly ever dominate the conversation. Our bottoms often remain a base on which the rest of the outfit is built. Whether it’s a printed shirt, a graphic jacket, or even a pair of sick kicks.
Loewe definitely wants us to challenge the idea of trousers being mere foundational pieces in outfits. Among the brand’s avant-garde offerings for its Spring/Summer 2025 menswear collection are a duo of trouser designs that certainly defy modern perceptions. The first is draped—fixed with a branded leather tag at the front—making the trousers resemble a skirt-trouser hybrid; the other is a voluminous cable-knit trouser that, when not in motion, looks like a midi-length bubble skirt.
But if Loewe’s proposals are too over-the-top, consider Prada’s low-waist trousers. They’re crafted from traditional menswear fabrics and feature a trompe-l’œil belt that sits even lower to give the illusion of a longer torso. And for a step down the statement trousers ladder, opt for Burberry’s iteration that are fitted with front double zips on each leg for easy style manipulation.
