Creased, crumpled: S/S 2025 menswear is about clothes that have ‘lived a life’

Prior to Prada’s S/S 2025 menswear show, a small white cabin – suspended on stilts in the Fondazione Prada show space – pulsated with the sounds of Faithless’s Insomnia, as if a party was taking place within. As the show began, models streamed from the cabin’s doorway into the starkly lit Deposito space, their clothing creased and crumpled, like they were emerging into daylight after a long night out.

Co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons said it was about creating clothes that had ‘lived a life, that are alive in themselves’ – an ode, they said, to ‘freedom, youthful optimism and energy’. ‘Youth is the future… it is hope. We wanted to do something that would express youthful optimism because the times are so bad,’ Mrs Prada elaborated backstage after the show.

It was a motif that ran through the season, with designers from Maximilian Davis at Ferragamo to Matthieu Blazy at Bottega Veneta embracing the crumpled and the lived-in – albeit achieved through extraordinary expressions of fabric manipulation, each crease and fold preserved as if garments are frozen in a moment in time.

It spoke to a wider mood of laidback languor that ran throughout the S/S 2025 season, seeing menswear archetypes, from the denim jacket to the tailored trouser, loosened-up, purposely skewiff and haphazardly layered, as if thrown on in haste. Here, taken from the May 2025 Design Issue of Wallpaper*, Italy-born and London-based photographer Steve Harnacke and stylist Nicola Neri capture this season’s casual, undone mood.

Models: Kuba at PRM, Femi at Present Model Management, Ruben Long and Samuel Dawson at Premier Model Management, Archie Carr at D1 Models, Truman Hickey at Elite London, Kerlual and Louis S at Menace Models, Fiachra at Osmosis, James Drew. Casting: Jon at Jon Johnson Studios. Set design: Harry Stayt. Grooming: Lachlan Mackie. Interiors: Olly Mason. Digi tech: Laura Heckford. Photography assistant: Oliver Webb. Fashion assistant: Louis Boyagis. Grooming assistants: Natsu Tomonaga, Pip Paz Howlett. Set design assistants: Theo Nielson. Production assistants: Ady Huq, Clemmie Harris.

A version of this article appears in the May 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from 3 April, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today