From the mini-dress reinvented in every way at JW Anderson to the color-gradient suit set at Erdem, the designers who presented their spring-summer 2025 collections at London Fashion Week on Sunday had fun reworking a key piece in endless variations.
– JW Anderson declines the mini-dress –
From the tutu to the deconstructed sweater version, the short dress is the central element of the collection of JW Anderson, the brand of Loewe artistic director Jonathan Anderson.
Under the glass roof of Old Billingsgate, a former Victorian fish market in the City district, the Northern Irish designer has produced this garment almost exclusively, varying the materials, shapes and colours, but always in mini length.
A few are summery, in sky blue satin or light pink sequins, but most of them are more worthy of a chilly British summer, borrowing from the winter wardrobe in thick knits and leather.
On some dresses, the buttons of a vest, the pocket or the cords of a sweatshirt are printed directly on the fabric. Others are in a sweater version, associated with flat ankle boots with the zipper open, others are even in a blazer version.
Some models wear it in a dancer’s version, with large tutus and leotards in black, brown or khaki leather, and others in a maxi version of the “ball” skirt, which has been making a comeback since spring.
Also artistic director of the rising brand of the LVMH group, the Spanish label Loewe, Jonathan Anderson, soon to be 40, continues to revisit classics in a hybrid version, grafting sweater sleeves or giant knits onto simple white or navy dresses.
– Mixing genres at Erdem –
Every show by designer Erdem Moralioglu tells a story, and Sunday’s show in the majestic courtyard of the British Museum, with fashion’s high priestess Anna Wintour in the audience, was meant to embody the spirit of Radclyffe Hall’s book “The Well of Loneliness.”
This 1928 work, about a lesbian woman who, like Hall, wanted to live her life as a man, caused a scandal in Britain and was banned for obscenity.
For its spring-summer 2025 collection, which is intended to bring to life these figures navigating between gender expressions, Erdem first presents models in loose suits and short hair, then others, romantic and feminine, in delicate dresses with ruffles or lace.
But these figures merge and little by little, the ample masculine jacket is associated with transparent stockings, a pearl skirt, or a slit silk shirt-dress.
For his suit sets, the heart of his collection and which come in black, sea green and candy pink, the designer called on the Savile Row tailor Edward Sexton, in reference to a passage in the book in which the character, Stephen, feels an “awakening” when he puts on this garment.
– “Anti” promo ball at Sinead Gorey –
On a basketball court decorated with garlands, balloons and topped with a disco ball, Londoner Sinead Gorey invited spectators to a “grand end-of-year ball”, bathed in nostalgia for the end of the 1990s and early 2000s… but celebrating the “anti-heroine” rather than the traditional party queen.
Subversive, she wears corsets, biker jackets, punk tartan mini-skirts and ties her schoolgirl tie at her waist as a belt.
“She’s the prom pariah who eschews the classic ball gown. In fact, she’s probably not even going to prom – just the ‘afterparty,'” the young designer said.
As is often the case in her collections, the models have a diamond-studded phone in their pocket or their earphones in their ears. In the midst of a resurgence of trends from the early 2000s – or “Y2K” – the three-quarter leggings and candy pink Converse high tops will also have brought back memories to the “millennial” generation.
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