New York Fashion Week: Highlights from the Fall-Winter 2025 runways
CNN
The Fall-Winter season, featuring Calvin Klein and Thom Browne, marks a series of debuts, returns and decisive shake-ups for American designers.
What is the state of American fashion right now? It’s a question at least partly answered by New York Fashion Week, which concludes Tuesday, where brands including Calvin Klein and Thom Browne are showing their latest collections in a season marked by major debuts, returns and decisive shake-ups for American designers. Amid a wider industry reshuffling, several major labels and cult mainstays — including Proenza Schouler, Area and Helmut Lang — are absent from the schedule following the departure of their creative directors. Some heritage brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren skipped the season entirely, while others showed overseas or across state lines. (Willy Chavarria, one of New York’s most prominent designers, opted to show during Paris’ menswear week; Bode, though still officially on the schedule, debuted its collection in New Orleans as part of the football- and fashion-centric GQ Bowl.) A pared-down week in New York has nonetheless seen doses of theatricality, including Marc Jacobs’ off-schedule procession of doll-like models in exaggerated silhouettes and Christian Siriano’s automotive-inspired gowns and flashy clubwear. But understated collections focused on wearability have been par for the course, from Eckhaus Latta’s “anti-snobbish” showing of leather bombers, cargo pants and casual asymmetrical dresses to Veronica Leoni’s highly anticipated first collection for Calvin Klein. In the latter brand’s first runway show since creative director Raf Simons’ departure in 2018, Leoni seemed to issue a return-to-work order, with sleek business casual attire made weightless through wide tailoring and billowing silk. “I really tried to explore beauty in the most authentic, clean, fresh and pure way,” she told reporters, including CNN, backstage. “We (were) inspired by the archive, but didn’t get into any nostalgia. We tried not to get stuck looking too much into the past.” Klein, now 82, was in attendance at his namesake label’s comeback. So too were Calvin Klein models past and present, including Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, FKA Twigs and Kendall Jenner, the last of whom walked the show in an ankle-length pinstripe coat dress.
