The sculptural seduction of drapery on the catwalk What is the trend à la Christo& Jeanne-Claude body?

In the latest wave of runway shows for the SS/FW 2025 seasons, the tendency of some designers in the fashion industry to create garments with draping seems to have resurfaced. This technique is not new to fashion and, in the past, found its main exponents in Azzedine Alaïa and Madame Grès. Both their styles were inspired by Greek sculptural art, particularly the works of Phidias and Skopas. The French couturier used to describe her creative process by saying: «I wanted to be a sculptor. For me, working with fabric or stone is the same thing.» However, the draping technique was not only interpreted in a sculptural dimension: some brands have recently started proposing draped garments that resemble the sheets draped over buildings or artworks under construction. Covering statues and various relics, these sheets take on the shape of the object they hide, creating drapes and folds. Historically, these coverings have sometimes been transformed into true works of art: the American artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude is known for wrapping important monuments like the Reichstag building in Berlin in '95 and, more recently, the Arc de Triomphe in 2021. Drawing inspiration from this ancient artistic technique that has traversed time and space, today's creatives are once again draping and wrapping bodies as if they were artworks. For her debut at Calvin Klein, Veronica Leoni created draped skirts and dresses that envelop the body without constricting it, aligning with her idea of "sexitude" — a notion of comfortable sexuality and sensuality, as she explained in an interview with Vanessa Friedman for the New York Times. In the same show, Leoni, who grew up on minimalism, designed outerwear for both men and women in neutral colors with large built-in cape collars, structured to fold over themselves, creating a "casual" draping effect.

Fausto Puglisi, on the other hand, in the FW25 collection for Roberto Cavalli, narrates the splendor and ruins of ancient Pompeii through Pompeian red velvet coats and sand-colored draped dresses: a contemporary version of the tunics worn by Roman matrons. Still drawing on the sculptural dimension of this trend, emerging designers like Francesco Murano and Andrea Adamo have made the draping tradition an essential element of their creations. Murano, a finalist for the LVMH Prize, in his latest collection titled “AEQUUS LIBRA”, showcases sculptural shirts and dresses with transparencies reminiscent of the traditional chitons worn in ancient Greece. Adamo, meanwhile, in FW25 pairs soft wool sweaters with oversized trousers and mini skirts draped on the side, as if carried by the wind. This technique has often been used to depict the garments of pagan deities first, and later Christian figures, in sculpture and painting. In this regard, just a few days ago at the Cannes Film Festival, actress and juror Juliette Binoche walked the red carpet in a white Christian Dior dress featuring a draped hood that transformed into a crêpe top, reminiscent of the rippled dress of the Virgin Mary in Michelangelo’s Pietà.

When it comes to sculptural garments, it is impossible not to mention Pieter Mulier's work at Alaïa, who for his FW25 collection created geometric dresses with curved shapes, entirely draped. Mulier’s dresses are small architectures, a perfect synthesis and balance between the North African tribal spirit of the maison and his rational and cold vision as a "disciple" of the Antwerp school. Lorenzo Serafini, instead, in his debut collection for Alberta Ferretti, offers one-shoulder dresses with chiffon drapes, a signature of the brand. Meanwhile, Matthieu Blazy, in his final show as creative director of Bottega Veneta (FW25), designed a sunflower-colored jersey dress gathered on one side with a long sleeve that acts almost as a train. Donatella Versace, reintroducing the maison’s iconic baroque prints in FW25, included silk skirt designs resembling scarves, draped and paired with 80s-style blouses and studded leather gloves. Nodding to the work of Azzedine Alaïa, and in particular to some looks he created for Grace Jones, Conner Ives presents in FW25 a purple dress with a deep neckline ending in a gathered design, combined with a headpiece made of beer bottle caps. The draped effect during the last fashion weeks was interpreted more conceptually by some designers. In the FW25 show of Comme des Garçons, there was a deconstructed fuchsia coat whose fabric folds resembled a bellows, the core of an accordion.

Without straying from the unmistakable aesthetics of Japanese fashion, in the latest Issey Miyake FW25 collection, there is a dress entirely made of strips and shreds of white fabric that wrap the body as if it were an archaeological artifact to be preserved. Moreover, Miyake is the creator of pleating, a technique often considered the twin of draping, which also fascinated Alessandro Michele, who in the 2025 Valentino Couture collection, created a pleated cape resembling a theater curtain revealing the structure of a crinoline underneath. Recently, for this year’s Met Gala, the Roman maison crafted a precious cloak with the same effect, worn by one of the co-chairs, Colman Domingo: part "fashion priest", part modern dandy. Rick Owens, in FW25, proposes his own version of the wrap-effect by designing sweatshirts that seem constructed with overlapping sheets of paper, creating both a draped and layered effect, almost as if the folds corresponded to layers of skin. The brand Alain Paul in FW25 presented a look consisting of a dress resembling a wrinkled sheet, draped on one side to reveal the tailored pants underneath: a look somewhere between wrap-effect and bedcore.

Returning to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in 1963, during a stay in Rome, Christo wrapped a statue in Villa Borghese with ropes, just as relics are usually secured for transport from one museum to another. This artistic practice was, in a way, also used by Ludovic de Saint-Sernin in his Couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier. In the show, which revolved around a shipwreck aesthetic, a model wore a tightly draped dress whose forms were accentuated by intertwined ropes, though it also likely referenced the Little Mermaid’s first human dress, crafted with the help of the seagull Scuttle. The draped effect has captivated the surrealist spirit of Jonathan Anderson, who recently became the creative director of Dior Homme. Anderson unveiled the new Loewe outerwear for this spring, called “The Draped Jacket”: a leather jacket whose back features a draped effect seemingly held together by a leather tag. On its social media, the brand detailed the long and complex creative process behind the making of the Draped Jacket.