The Wallpaper* A/W 2025 menswear trend report

Fashion currently feels in a state of limbo. With a slew of creative directors taking up tenure in the coming months, menswear fashion week – which took place in Florence, Milan and Paris this January – felt somewhat subdued, with the distinct feeling that designers and houses were taking stock ahead of some seismic changes ahead (the number of debuts taking place from now until September has reached the double digits, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford). As of yesterday morning, the changes kept coming: Kim Jones is set to leave his position as creative director of Dior Men after seven years at the creative powerhouse. As for his replacement, rumours abound.

The changes also meant a more scant schedule than in recent seasons: Gucci and Fendi were off the Milan Fashion Week schedule (both will show co-ed in February), as was JW Anderson, who has shown in the city since the summer of 2022. In Paris, Loewe was notably absent, as was Dries Van Noten (the latter will show its first collection by Julian Krausner next month), while Givenchy also chose to wait until womenswear fashion month to unveil Burton’s vision for the house. There were some additions, though: buzzy American designer Willy Chavarria swapped New York for Paris, and brought some much-needed energy, while Peter Copping debuted his men’s and womenswear collections for Lanvin on Paris Fashion Week Men’s final evening.

With all that said, there was still plenty to unpack from the month-long schedule of shows, which largely continued to move away from quiet, understated luxury towards a bolder, more eclectic wardrobe – Prada, Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Sacai and Magliano all proposed the idea of individual style over a prescribed uniform. There was also an intriguing re-examination of eveningwear, an influence of the outdoors, and some extraordinary expressions of craft. Meanwhile faux fur became the surprising fabric du jour.

Here, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss unpacks the trends and takeaways from menswear month, which concluded in Paris this past Sunday.

Men’s Fashion Month A/W 2025: the trends and takeaways

Designers continued to embrace the eclectic

After Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ paean to individual style at their S/S 2025 womenswear show in September – complete with 49 radically different looks – the pair continued to eschew thematics for a bold assemblage of elements which Simons describe as akin to an ‘unconscious’ stream of thought. As such the collection teetered between the romantic – floral motifs, washed-out plaids, shrunken knits adorned with metal charms, boyish pyjamas – and something more ‘primitive’ in faux fur hoods and tabards, cowboy boots, and suits made from patchworked pieces of leather. Mrs Prada said it was about ‘instinct, passion and romance.... which is so crucial at the moment; it’s the season of artificial intelligence, and this is our move again towards humanity.’

It was a mood which infused much of the season, whereby designers largely rejected the quiet and understated in the pursuit of bolder expressions of personal style. At Giorgio Armani, the 90-year-old designer presented a collection of ‘elegance to live in’ which he said was a rejection of a ‘pre-packaged formula’ (as such, the collection moved between typically fluid tailoring, iridescent skiwear, and a multitude of enveloping textures and surface finishes). At Sacai, Chitose Abe drew inspiration from Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, in which the protagonist travels to a magical realm of beasts and creatures; in the collection, this meant a heady mash-up of faux fur, skiwear and the tuxedo, alongside playful collaborations with Carhartt and Ugg.

Opening Paris Fashion Week Men’s, Pharrell Williams drafted fellow designer Nigo to collaborate on a Louis Vuitton collection inspired by their personal archives – from CDs and toys to varsity jackets and sneakers – which were displayed in the Louvre showspace. The collection itself had a similarly eclectic mood, an uninhibited ride through the pair’s shared obsessions, from playful Japanese motifs to souped-up riffs on workwear and uniforms. Like at Prada, it was an invitation to experiment and play.

Evening wear was re-examined

‘I think it’s time to bring back the pleasure of wearing a suit, not because you have to, but for the fun of it,’ said Véronique Nichanian at the end of her A/W 2025 show for Hermès, which culminated with louche, 1970s-inflected tailoring. Indeed, a desire for dress up – and the continuing renaissance of tailoring – ran through the season, with designers embracing (or indeed deconstructing) traditional formal wear. At Wooyoungmi, a riff on the tuxedo opened a show which saw designer Madame Woo rework menswear archetypes (the suits were sculpted at the waist, and came adorned with 3D-appliqué flowers in tailoring wool), while at Sacai, the closing look saw black blazers sliced away to reveal their lining, trimmed with faux fur, or reconstructed into flared, peplum silhouettes. Meanwhile Kim Jones, in what would be his final collection for Dior Men, looked towards the ‘graphic and angular’ tailoring of Christian Dior’s mid-century Ligne H collection, presented in the mid-1950s. It led to some extraordinary pieces: a crossover single-breasted tuxedo, nipped at the waist; a ballooning black kimono jacket, or a white blazer adorned with a single white bow along its back. They continued Jones’ assertion that clothing must be precious to warrant your attention: ‘people want something that noone else has,’ he told Wallpaper* in 2024.

Faux fur was everywhere

Occasionally, a trend emerges in such a way that you feel convinced that designers must have plotted up the idea together beforehand. This season, it was faux fur, which began in Milan with Dolce & Gabbana’s shaggy 2000s-inspired hooded jackets (the collection was tilted ‘Paparazzi’, and the collection was an ode to celebrity street style) and continued in Prada’s S/S 2025 collection, whereby Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons said animalistic slices of faux fur represented an intuitive, primitive way of dressing (after all, the desire to swaddle oneself in fur and animal hides dates back to the neanderthals). In Paris, Auralee’s faux fur jacket – worn beneath an overcoat with a baby blue collar poking out from beneath – offered a more quotidien take on the trend, while at Saint Laurent, which closed the month with a surprise show, Anthony Vaccarrello showed a series of showstopping ‘fur’ coats which were actually constructed from thousands of feathers. In a similar vein, shearling was also in abundance throughout the season – Zegna, Hermès and Sacai all used the enveloping fabric in their collections – suggesting a collective want for protection against the elements (whether adverse weather or something more existential).

Designers were ready to head outdoors

Utility and pragmatism were a throughline of the season, with a number of designers looking towards outdoor-wear for inspiration (with the churn of world news continuing across fashion month, it was unsurprising that designers sought refuge in the call of the wild). A rugged collection from Japanese label Junya Watanabe MAN, featuring a series of burly, bearded models, set the tone with a collaboration with Filson, a historic American outdoorwear brand which dates back to 1897. Citing a desire for ‘something real’, Watanabe’s signature workwear silhouettes were presented alongside plaid shirts, waxed jackets, patchworked jeans and trucker hats (the sounds of bearded American folk singer Avi Kaplan provided the soundtrack). Both Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani had whole sections of outdoor-wear (the former in gleaming iridescent skiwear, the latter in piled-up fluoro hiking gear), while at Yohji Yamamoto and IM Men (an Issey Miyake offshoot), quilted fabrics were used to enveloping effect. Most intriguing, though, was Kiko Kostadinov’s latest collection, which he said was inspired by the stark, isolated natural environments of Hungarian director Béla Tarr. In his signature queasy colour combinations, models trudged across a runway of fallen leaves, wearing riffs on fleece hiking jackets, military overcoats and swaddling ponchos, while a pair of tabi sneakers (the latest in a collaboration with Japanese sportswear brand Asics) were this season’s most covetable footwear.

High-level craft remained key

Rick Owens titled his latest collection ‘Concordia’, a reference to the industrial Italian town, close to Venice, where he produces his collections. In its austerity, he called it a kind of creative monastery, a space for him and his teams to work on ideas in total isolation (‘this cloistered life seems to be what it takes to be able to focus on reaching for something weird and wonderful,’ he said). As such, his A/W 2025 collection was an impressive demonstration of craft, from the ‘megacrust’ jeans (made from bronze foil and wax painstakingly applied onto denim), to the sweeping tops made from millefeuille layers of hand-cut rubber, or the incredible boots adorned with scale-like layers of laser-cut leather (a collaboration with Victor Clavelly). Make no mistake, despite their purposeful appearance of rawness and dishevelment – a Rick Owens signature – this craft was couture level.

Indeed, a focus on high-level craft ran throughout the season, not least at Dior, whereby his latest couture line for men (interspersed with the ready-to-wear collection) melded impressive construction with breathtaking beadwork and embellishment, like a twinkling of crystals across the shoulder of a blazer that gave the appearance of having been caught in the rain. At Louis Vuitton, there were mink intarsia hoodies replicating the house’s checkerboard motif, while at Saint Laurent, the aforementioned ‘fur’ coats were constructed from delicate fronds of feathers painstakingly hand-applied. Meanwhile at Giorgio Armani, which will celebrate 50 years in business this year, the show ended with a black velvet blazer adorned with smatterings of sparkle, evoking a night sky dotted with stars.