With the SS25 menswear season wrapped, we dive into the themes and trends we saw across London, Milan and Paris.

It is no coincidence that the quiet luxury era of fashion nearly perfectly slotted into the time that Alessandro Michele was missing in action from the industry, between his tenures at Gucci and now, Valentino. Michele made a surprise return this season with a gigantic lookbook for Valentino’s Resort 2025 collection, 171 outfits in total that displayed all of the bombastic styling, 70s silhouettes, and loud florals for which he has become celebrated for. But god, wasn’t it such a breath of fresh air to see Michele doing what he does best after an era in which designers became obsessed with the idea of clothes being “wearable” – that’s great and all, but where are the thousands of accessories it takes a whole morning to put on?

It isn’t just Michele leading this charge. You can always rely on Jonathan Anderson to understand that fashion is about dreams and desire. We want bellowing golden trousers and jackets that are permanently bent all wrong, which is exactly what Anderson delivered at Loewe this season. Anderson is one of the few designers who understands that if you’re spending thousands of pounds on an outfit, you want to enter a room and have all eyes on you.

Rick Owens gets this too. Seeing somebody wearing full Rick is like meeting something from a different planet. His SS25 show was a glorious expression of excess in homage to Old Hollywood. Nobody is doing it like him.