Here, compiled for easy reference, are our reviews of the Spring Summer 2025 Men’s shows from Paris Fashion Week.
Louis Vuitton
Pharrell Williams has always exhibited a sort of fascination with the human race. ‘Human Race’ is, after all, the name of his Adidas collaboration and his beauty label. But for Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2025 — his third creative-directed collection — Pharrell chooses to focus less on the ‘human race’ and more on ‘humankind’, with emphasis on the word ‘kind’.
Kindness has not been a topic too deeply explored by the world of fashion, but it is a ubiquitous one — one with the propensity to impact a political climate or simply make another person’s day. It is something that has been innate within us since childhood, and yet something that seems to have been lost along the way. This is perhaps why Pharrell has selected to open the show with Swiss curator and art critic Simon Njami preaching to the next generation. “The world is yours,” he tells them. United in a message of peace and held at the rooftop of the UNESCO House, the collection thus unfolds with universalism first; and in a way so universal, that it can be understood even by a child.
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Dior Men
There is something very juvenile about Kim Jones’ Summer 2025 collection for Dior Men. Set up by a looping Kate Bush track — Cloudbusting — and carried further by the unorthodox life-sized ceramic cats along the runway, there is a sense of quirk that appears achievable only with an acute vision of youth, that sets in motion all of one’s creative ideas. Essentially, Dior Men’s Summer 2025 looks like something one could DIY — ‘looks’ is the point of contention.
This sprightly energy within the Summer 2025 collection stems from a youthful gaze — perhaps that of Jones’ own — and that explains that of the collection’s uninhibited expressions. Why else would Cloudbusting get played three times over, or would the streetwear-inclined creative director select a South African potter as the season’s choice creative collaborator? Kim Jones may be all grown up, but he declares that his designs don’t have to be too.
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Loewe
By now, it would be expected of Jonathan Anderson to call himself an auteur. It is the product of his accolades: two brands — Loewe and his namesake label Jonathan Anderson — to great success, a distinct midas touch with apparel and accessories and a rep for being one of the generation’s brightest surrealists.
Which is why when the Spring/Summer 2025 show opened with a string of three gilded feathers obscuring the model’s face against an all-black, well-tailored suit set, it was like watching a different genre of surrealism that evoked a different kind of thought-provocation. But in true Anderson fashion, a mother-of-pearl vest soon set the tone for the remaining looks to come, upping the ante into a collection that remained progressively modest, but incredibly buoyant. As it progressed, the collection seemed to take flight on its own — as trousers swelled in size and volume, cape tops flared wider and wider, and knit combos ballooned. And yet, none of the looks ever wandered off too far into the raunchy territories that Anderson himself had once explored. A humble plaid and a nod to the essentials — hello, polo tees and all-back suiting — tempered the flightiness of feathered tops, iridescent offerings and billowy capes.
Staged a mise-en-scène of five different works of art, three to five feathers were all it took for the house to lift off in its own direction. Even if it didn’t have the same provocation as the house’s prior seasons, standouts like shorts frozen in time, and coats with lapels stuck in the wind show just how the house has that much agility in exercising restraint as they do with creative flair.
Hermes
In a world where summer dressing has now evolved to constitute shorter-than-short shorts and neon-printed Hawaiian tees, Hermes seeks to reinvent the wheel, by reinstating formality along at the coast for Spring/Summer 2025.
Unlike what one might envision, the collection shapes up to be squarely modern — just designed with formal intention on the brain. In this train of thought, creative director Véronique Nichanian has found a way to undo the rigidity of luxurious leather and suedes, refashioning them as delicate and weightless.
Let loose a little, is something critics might say to Nichanian. Does the house of Hermès always need traditional cuts or silhouettes as the basis of nearly every season? Nichanian, who has been at the helm for nearly 30 years, says yes. The Hermès man is one who abides by a modern formality. So, small radicalisms in chain-link tendrils (that extend beyond a garment onto the skin), recurring equestrian prints and variants of colour-blocking — in summer-friendly strips of neon greens, yellows and pinks — are already potent updates for the classic and timeless Hermès wardrobe.
Kenzo
Walking around in circles is a saying for those who do a lot without achieving anything. And it denotes negativity — that the end product lacks brevity. But it also means to keep intact with your beliefs, standing firm on the principles that make you who you are. And for those who walk around in circles as a group, there’s a lot that can be achieved in a small, confined loop. For Nigo’s latest showing for Kenzo, there is no room for negativity. Instead, the new Spring/Summer 2025 collection is evidence that the artistic director remains dedicated to the brand’s East-meets-West idealism. Now that he’s settled into his role as the auteur of the beloved house, it’s hard to imagine Kenzo nwithout his touch, plus the host of talents he invites to bring his creations to life.
Technically, Nigo could’ve gone solo this season. Yet, SS25 is a product of masterful collaborations — like Verdy’s Girls Don’t Cry contribution for an animated signature to the house’s iconography. The soundtrack as well, which was produced in tandem with Whojiggi. In it, the new proposal includes silhouettes that were effortlessly draped on the body — for both its men’s and women’s looks. Some oddities to the add to the fun, including a tiger sewn on the shoulders of a denim jacket, or a hoodie that fully encases the face, makes for a modern twist.
Rick Owens
In Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, Hollywood was nothing but a place of horror and depravity, an exaggerated tale of identity and assimilation in young Los Angeles. For anyone who’s been to LA itself, you’d agree on its exaggeration, gimmicks done irritably to push our nerves in the name of cinema. But according to Rick Owens, these descriptions of Hollywood was a first hand experience, when he settled into a small community of like-minded individuals in the city of angels.
Thus begins Spring/Summer 2025’s lore — his love letter to all the “his people, weirdos and freaks, living in a world Lou Reed described in Walk On The Wild Side.” And as freakish, devilish and sinful as it gets for Rick Owens, we were greeted by fashion that’s, simply put, not for the faint hearted. Resembling biblical epics, his return to Palais de Tokyo saw a parade of models in jumbo Geobaskets, chiffon capes, and hooded biker jackets — all in the style of space opera-esque epics. Were we witnessing a ritual? A performance inquiring on the private and domestic? Or a reflection of his people, the cult of The Lord of Darkness, in full glory. Either way, we can all agree that this was Paris’ most epic yet for the season.
Comme des Garçons Homme Plus
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Here’s an afterthought — Comme des Garçons’ ideas will never die. Not even if Paris moves on from being the centre of fashion, nor if Tokyo decides to fully embrace its normcore minimalist aesthetic. Having expanded the boundaries of performance art through provocative interventions of fashion, its consistency has become an icon of counterculture. So much so that today at the Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Spring/Summer 2025 show, there was nothing whammy about its showing, even while her models walked down the runway with jarring proportions of clothes and the mountain of hair clips on their heads.
That’s not to say it’s a bad thing. Coming from other shows this season to this, its setting on the first floor of an unfinished building already foretold a much-needed change of air in the fashion spirit. And Rei Kawakubo delivered what we’d all expect at Comme des Garçons — to continue the discourse on what we deem is fashion. Which meant to have consistency, the same manipulation to textiles and deceptive deconstruction, is a universal concept even for fashion’s most anti-established. And she’s not alone in this. The show was attended by Comme des Garçons fans sporting very desirable archive pieces, as well as the surprise attendance of ATEEZ’s Captain Hongjoong.
Written by Manfred Lu & Vanessa Grace Ng.
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