Unpacking A/W 2025’s best runway sets, which captured a mood of longing and escape

With several key brands waiting to debut new creative directors in September, the A/W 2025 shows (see our highlights from New York, London, Milan and Paris) have been a touch quieter than usual. But fashion knows how to put on a spectacle – and where things were business as usual, there were moments of real wonder, genius and delight. Show sets across the board hinted at a longing for escape – an unsurprising theme against the backdrop of a worsening global recession – and the desire to get away played out in various storylines both literal and metaphorical.

In London, Daniel Lee took us to the countryside with a blockbuster display at Tate Britain for Burberry; in Milan, Maximilian Davis gave us romance with a room strewn with thousands of rose petals for Ferragamo; and in Paris, Nicolas Ghesquière invited guests aboard the Louis Vuitton Express with a nostalgic tribute to train travel. Here, discover the most captivating show settings of the A/W 2025 season:

Chanel

There’s something ceremonial about the Chanel runway show – it’s always at the Grand Palais in Paris, and it always marks the final day of fashion month. A send-off for weary editors, the glass and steel Beaux-Arts monument in the 8th arrondissement has set the stage for countless fantasies dreamt up by creative directors past and present – from the icebergs of rocky glaciers to the stylised aisles of supermarkets. This season, the house (which is currently led by its 'Creative Studio’ as it awaits the arrival of new creative director Matthieu Blazy) took a simple yet striking approach, unfurling a gigantic black ribbon through the Grand Palais, conceived by Canadian designer Willo Perron. Black bows are a symbol long part of Chanel’s history; Gabrielle Chanel pinned them to her tweed suits and Karl Lagerfeld threaded them through the hair of the 1990s supermodels. Presenting a monochromatic collection of 1940s silhouettes and ballet-coded tulle, for A/W 2025, the Creative Studio reinterpreted the motif in illusory trompe l’oeil. Celebrating the traditions of the Parisian house, the collection was a tribute to Chanel’s enduring elegance – then and now.

Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada is a master in summoning feeling through fabric – and, as it turns out, that skill extends beyond the remit of clothes. Her A/W 2025 show set for Miu Miu layered an entire room in Paris with a yellow moiré that shimmered slightly as the light moved on it, evoking the occasion of a coming-of-age party dress. Traditional wooden kitchen chairs were sawn off at the base and lined up next to each other on raised platforms that were covered in the fabric, forming a seating arrangement for show-goers that felt both homely and a bit surreal. Mixing the tender and tough dress codes of the Miu Miu woman, the collection that followed presented an ‘evaluation of the feminine’ – from sugary satin dresses to boyish tweed jackets; 1920s-style ‘furs’ and colourful silhouettes that gestured to the freedom of the 1960s.

Louis Vuitton

Next to the Gare du Nord train station in Paris sits the L’Étoile du Nord, a building that was once headquarters to a train company that predates the national railway of France. Having just undergone a sensitive refurbishment, the historic site was the perfect setting for Nicolas Ghesquière’s A/W 2025 collection, which drew upon train travel in culture throughout the eras. Gathering a variety of characters you might encounter on the train platform, his collection references ranged from 19th-century travel to Wong Kar Wei’s ‘2046’ and Kraftwerk’s 1977 album ‘Trans-Europe Express’ (which played as guests milled into the space). Set designer Es Devlin worked with Louis Vuitton to recreate the hustle and bustle of a train station – arranging colourful metal seating that one would find in station waiting rooms, while projecting the balconies of the building’s atrium with shadows of travellers on the go.

Balenciaga

Demna isn’t shy of throwing a spectacle – past runways have summoned gale-force snowstorms, dug swampy mud pits, and recreated the blue-carpeted political summits of Brussels. This season, things were a little bit more pared back. The Georgian designer unveiled his A/W 2025 collection within a dark maze, lining its walls with basic office chairs that were arranged democratically so that everyone got a front row seat. Purposefully building the set with multiple entrances and exits, he said the labyrinth structure was a ‘metaphor for the creative process’. The looks that followed presented a journey through the designer’s subversive years at the house – a ‘sociological wardrobe’ that twisted and hybridised archetypes, so that the office commuter’s suit was eaten by moths, a biker jacket was cinched like a Victorian corset, and the humble hoodie was cut in the sweeping proportions of a 1967 Balenciaga wedding dress. He said it was ‘an exercise in rigour, a challenge, a defining and a rethinking of standards’.

Valentino

Alessandro Michele knows how to put on a good show. His second ready-to-wear show as Valentino’s creative director imagined a public bathroom drenched in the house’s signature shade of blood red, taking inspiration from the surreal world of David Lynch with a cinematic splash of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’. Nostalgic square floor tiles, toilet stalls and rows of sinks set the scene for a frenetic runway where models didn’t walk, they performed, strutting up and down the bathroom, fussing in mirrors and disappearing in and out of cubicles. Drawing upon the latent sexual energy of a nightclub bathroom, the collection itself navigated ideas of ‘private and public, surfaces and depths’, resulting in an eclectic, erotically charged wardrobe that mixed up masculine and feminine shapes rooted in the various dress codes of the 1970s. ‘The deepest intimacy is theatre,’ Michele said following the display.

Courrèges

The world we are living in can feel bleak at times. In Paris, Nicolas Di Felice’s show served as a reminder of fashion’s power to lift us out of the gloom just when we need it most. Inspired by the uplifting confetti works of artist Dan Colen – which the Belgian designer said recently saved him from a moment of personal darkness – pink confetti orchestrated by French set designer Rémy Briere rained from the ceiling as a pulsing remix of Chantal’s house anthem ‘The Realm’ filled the room. Channelling the euphoria of Di Felice’s years spent immersed in the 1990s rave scene, the clothes themselves also radiated joy – wool scarves transformed into playfully windswept tops, Courrèges’ signature architectural tanks and jackets celebrated the body in inventive shapes, and ostrich feathers added flair to club looks. ‘This collection started from the first time I was pessimistic in my life, which was not like me at all, last season,’ Di Felice said. ‘So this is the total opposite. I found myself so happy, full of joy, and an optimist again.’

Dior

Legendary theatre artist Robert Wilson was the mind behind Dior’s A/W 2025 show, which staged an ambitious recreation of the dawn of time. Guests were seated around a simple LED square in a huge pitch black room, from which emerged an epic palaeolithic narrative that saw jagged glaciers erupt from smoke and dinosaurs fly across the room. A longtime collaborator of Marina Abramović, the Waco-born, 83-year-old was made famous for his architectural welding of light on stage, describing lighting as an act of ‘sculpture’. Out from Wilson’s elemental world, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collection explored ideas of tectonic shifts, evolution and the act of reflection – blending historical dress through the centuries with references that winked at the designs of her predecessors at Dior. Androgynous ruffles and britches looked to Virginia Woolf’s gender-blurring masterpiece Orlando, while there were influences from Gianfranco Ferré’s 1980s tenure at the house and a revival of John Galliano’s 2000s ‘J’Adore Dior’ T-shirt. It was, the designer says, about ‘a femininity that imagines possible futures by mixing evocations of a past’.

Ferragamo

Maximilian Davis’ show setting was perhaps the most beautiful of the week in Milan. Thousands of red rose petals were scattered across the floor in a scene that took inspiration from the contemporary ballets of German dance movement, Tanztheater. The London-born designer was thinking of the ‘unbound expression’ of 1970s Tanztheater Wuppertal productions, where outside elements like earth, rain and fallen leaves were brought in, forming poetic landscapes that shaped how performances would unfold. An interplay between space and body carried through Davis’ own display, where a bold red palette echoed the petal-strewn floor. Elsewhere, an array of tactile textures like sheer knits, shearling, feathers and tassels looked to the rebellious freedom of the 1920s arts underground. ‘[I wanted] to create a sense of discomfort in the expected,’ the designer said following the show.

Prada

Unveiled in the cavernous Deposito in Fondazione Prada’s Torre building, the house’s A/W 2025 show presented a lightly reworked version of its men’s presentation in January. Guests were spread across a two-storey industrial scaffolding structure laid with a swirling Art Nouveau carpet by Catherine Martin, who Miuccia Prada worked with on the wardrobe for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Part-Berlin warehouse rave, part-1920s hotel, the clashing materials reflected the miscellaneous portrait of womanhood Prada presented this season. As its starting point, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons asked each other, ‘What does femininity mean today? How do we define it?’ Their answer came through an eclectic journey into ‘raw glamour’ that mixed bedhead beauty with an array of thrown-together silhouettes – bulky fur jackets and bare legs, calf-skimming floral dresses, sultry strapless LBDs, heavy wool coats and silk pyjamas. It made you picture an impossibly chic woman popping to the shops in her outfit from the previous evening, layered with whatever was hanging closest to the front door.

Gucci

Even without the guiding vision of a creative director – following Sabato De Sarno’s brisk departure earlier this year – Gucci’s dramatic green show set was one of the most inspired of the A/W 2025 season. Marking 50 years since Aldo Gucci – son of house founder Guccio Gucci – designed the house’s interlocking G emblem as a tribute to his father’s initials, the symbol formed a snaking, mirrored stage for a co-ed collection that worked into Gucci’s foundational codes through the Italian notion of ‘sprezzatura’ (an effortless sort of ease). Guests sat in a plush, carpeted ring encircling the immense double-G, which, depending on their vantage point, showcased men’s first and then women’s, or the reverse. Unveiled to a rousing cinematic composition by Justin Hurwitz, performed by a live orchestra, the display was a celebration of the brand’s history and the ‘multiple custodians’ who together form the fabric of a luxury house. Little seen when a creative director is in the driving seat, these in-house designers came out in their dozens – wearing green knits that echoed the set – in a touching appearance at the show’s close.

Burberry

Daniel Lee has plumbed various ideas of British identity during his time at Burberry. This season, he found inspiration in heritage countryside estates, doing his research by rewatching things like Downton Abbey, Saltburn and The Crown. Staging his A/W 2025 Burberry show at London’s Tate Britain with the help of Paris producers Bureau Betak, vast sweeping curtains with pastoral depictions of English landscapes lined the walls, taking cues from the tapestry-clad interiors of country homes. Offsetting the ‘faded nobility’ of these hangings, a carpet in the bolt shade of blue Lee has made the house’s signature formed the runway, down which a cast of models and British actors like Richard E Grant and Elizabeth McGovern appeared in a series of looks that twisted trad countryside dress into a fresh, contemporary wardrobe. It was a clever blockbuster display that celebrated heritage with a welcome serving of fun – and certainly Lee’s best-received collection since taking the reins at Burberry.