The 10 best fashion shows of 2025 From the beloved but ill-fated Versace by Dario Vitale to the moving farewell to Giorgio Armani

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2025 has been a truly pivotal year for fashion. Between the crisis in sales, the winds of creative direction changes (with just as many debuts) affecting the major luxury names, the new wave of independent names rising rapidly, and the scandals in the Made in Italy supply chain, so much has happened—and above all, there have been so many shows to watch.

That’s why putting together a list of the ten best shows of the last twelve months wasn’t easy: should we pick the most discussed? Or the one that moved us the most? And what about the shows from excellent brands that, however, didn’t send shivers down our spines or capture the zeitgeist of a season? Unfortunately, every Top 10 also includes the invisible and silent presences of those who deserved a spot but were edged out by the shows that truly touched us.

Here, therefore, are the 10 best shows of 2025.

1.     Tom Ford SS26

The night, the fog, and a procession of characters who, alone or in groups, evoked visions that were both sensual and spectral. Between shiny patent leather trenches and perforated garments that seemed like veils, dresses with scandalous necklines that fell over the body almost like a liquid, subtly eccentric tailoring with raised lapels and swooning asymmetrical silk scarves that occasionally revealed flashes of icy nudity, Haider Ackermann creates a new narrative for Tom Ford—whispered, decadent, and vivid. To accompany the finale, on the dark blue-night runway, a sea of fog poured in as all the models returned to walk. This was certainly the show with the most fascinating storytelling of the entire season.

2.      Miu Miu FW25

In a world of it-girls, there is still room for those who dream of layering other eras onto our own. For the March show, Miuccia Prada opens her grandmothers’ wardrobe and pulls out an entire era. Pastel coats worn by time, brooches shining like forgotten memories, conical bras and vintage furs: an entire arsenal of nostalgic pieces that add a contemporary austere seriousness to the extravagance of the past. Miu Miu girls walk as if they had stolen the elegance of the ’20s and the ugly-chic of the ’90s, mixing nonchalance and coquettishness. It is a bittersweet winter, where nostalgia becomes an almost aggressive rebellion and the apparent disorder of the styling speaks to us of a present we often struggle to recognize.

3.      Versace SS26

The show that will be remembered as one of the biggest “what ifs” in fashion this decade. Dario Vitale, abruptly dismissed by Versace’s new owners, had wanted to redefine the sensuality of a brand that had perhaps become a bit calcified in the eternal glossy patina covering Donatella Versace’s glamazons. In contrast, Vitale evoked visions perhaps less immediately beautiful but much truer: the unmade bed decorating the venue, the open flaps and bare hips revealed by the movement of peplums, but above all the colors, the sordid hints of the ’80s evoked with humor and excellent taste. An era we would have loved to see continue, cut short too soon, leaving us wondering who will decide Versace’s creative future.

4.      Giorgio Armani SS26

The farewell show for the legendary designer who passed away this year was undoubtedly a major event. Held in the courtyard of the Accademia di Brera, carpeted for the occasion with a sea of lit candles, the show opened with light looks that faded into green before ending in an explosion of blues and purples. It was the last time a collection signed by Armani’s own hand graced the runways, and the entire vast Armani community—including a host of Hollywood stars, politicians, and great designers past and present—turned out for a tribute that could not have been more solemn.

5.      Willy Chavarria FW25

Tarantula is perhaps the show with which Willy Chavarria—a designer already deeply loved for over a decade—finally broke out of the fashion-insider bubble and loudly claimed his place among the industry heavyweights. Taken as a whole, the looks represent perhaps the definitive consolidation, the crystallization of the American designer’s aesthetic. It’s all there: the oversized suits, collars long as machetes, dramatic reds and blacks, flowers and charro hats, femme-fatale dresses but also sportswear, tattoos, rosaries, ’60s hairstyles. With Tarantula, the entire brand universe found its most mature and accomplished expression to date—a perfect moment to mark the new chapter opening for the brand.

6.      Saint Laurent Homme FW25

In recent years Anthony Vaccarello has adopted a very purist concept for his shows, with each collection centered on a single specific look hammered and re-hammered dozens of times with minimal variations. For the men’s FW25 show, however, the classic ’80s power dressing with double-breasted suits and broad shoulders took on a deliciously corrupt flavor: suits worn with thigh-high black leather cuissardes, leather gloves, the mix of tailored coats and bombers. It was all very elegant, yet also (not too subtly) perverse. Connecting the classic power-man outfit with very precise allusions to sadomasochistic domination—complacently icy in its execution—sent warm shivers down more than a few spines.

7.      Dior Homme SS26

Absolute debut of Jonathan Anderson at Dior—before the more celebrated women’s collection—the SS26 men’s show was definitely a strong moment for this year. Not so much because it marked the start of an era, but because it set a decisive shift in direction for Dior men. From the very contemporary, artistically futuristic atmospheres of Kim Jones, Anderson chose the field of coquettish nostalgia. True, the collection itself was very simple in its offering, but what made it interesting was not, so to speak, the colors but the nuances. The new Dior man loves gray and light blue, professorial tweed jackets, casual jeans, high-top sneakers. It’s an Oxford leisure-time vibe, a sort of collegiate fantasy balancing youth and adulthood. A moment that set the mood for seasons to come.

8.      Martin Margiela Artisanal 2025

After John Galliano’s last Artisanal show for Margiela—already among the highest peaks of the British designer’s career and of fashion in the last ten, if not twenty, years—expectations were sky-high. Glenn Martens is one of today’s hottest designers, delivering hit after hit. Until then he had single-handedly put Y/Project on the map and then turned Diesel into a blockbuster brand. Taking the seat once occupied by Martin Margiela was his first true consecration: the show was fascinating, the clothes seductive, the masks utterly alien. The mood Martens brought to the brand is both refined and rough, less theatrical than the flamboyant Galliano and solemn like an ancient ruined yet still inhabitable palace. Definitely the start of something great.

9.      Enfants Riches Déprimés SS26

Despite its cult following and the absolute tsunami of counterfeit products flooding the secondhand market, not enough is said about Enfants Riches Déprimés, whose founder Henry Alexander Levy hasn’t missed a beat in years. Honestly, there isn’t a designer working today with an aesthetic palette as precise yet varied as his, nor one whose storytelling and “characters” are so clearly defined. More than a simple narrative, what Levy creates is a pocket universe where all the darkest expressions of menswear—from biker uniforms to soldier gear, from punk to 19th-century aristocracy—coexist. His shows are always among the most perfect of Paris Fashion Week, and this one was no exception.

10.   Bottega Veneta SS26

When it was announced that Louise Trotter would replace Mathieu Blazy at Bottega Veneta, the feeling was one of relative calm. At Carven, Trotter had worked wonders, and her skill was beyond question. Nonetheless, Blazy’s Bottega Veneta had been something marvelous. What would happen? With a more than steady hand, however, Trotter arrived with a collection that did mark a shift from the Blazy era yet was also the most immediately solid and universally acclaimed debut of the “great creative reset.” Trotter’s imagination is more abstract and less literary than her predecessor’s, but her sophisticated taste married perfectly with the brand’s mood and promised wonders for seasons to come.

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