Boots in the boudoir

Spring/summer 2025 is going to be full of flowery feminine prints and floaty blouses and skirts if the Paris runway shows that end Tuesday are anything to go by.

But the retro boudoir chic comes with a hard, deeply emancipated edge. Irish designer Jonathan Anderson at Loewe won a lot of fans for his hooped steampunky flowery dresses where you could see not just the crinolines underneath, but the boxing boots too.

“We are seeing sexy and practical at the same time,” Claire Thomson Jonville of fashion bible Vogue told AFP.

“You see an evening dress with a parka,” she added, referencing the Australian brand Zimmerman, whose flowing powder-pastel dresses were given a hard edge by almost military jackets.

The world is flat

Another quiet revolution has been going on on the catwalks. High heels have been giving way to a procession of flatter, more practical footwear.

Dior’s famously feminist designer Maria Grazia Chiuri pretty much did away with heels in her collection… though a few discreet kittens did escape the cull. Instead her models walked in flat, thigh-high hi-tech versions of what you would imagine ancient Amazons or Spartan warriors would wear, as well embroidered sandals with ultra-thin soles.

Sweden’s Acne Studios matched its chicest business suits and skirts with imitation carpet slippers, further embedding a strong trend to liberate the comfy slipper from the style crime stocks. Dries Van Noten also hopped onto the bandwagon with its pointy trompe d’oeil crocodile skin flats.

Suits you

“The need for a strong female energy right now could be seen at Saint Laurent, Loewe, Victoria Beckham and Christopher Lemaire,” argued Vogue’s Thomson Jonville, who said they all had a strong streak of “female empowerment”.

Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello dived into the personal wardrobe of the brand’s founder, Yves Saint Laurent, to dress his women the legendary designer’s double-breasted suits.

A whole army of Yves clones strode down the catwalk in oversized men’s suits nearly 60 years after the French designer revolutionised fashion by putting women in men’s black tuxedos, his famous “smoking”.

Victoria Beckham’s suits were cut closer to the body and were a lot less literal, some with sleeves torn off or legs slashed — if these symbols of male power had been mauled by all the ages of stored-up female rage.

Stella McCartney’s suits — one of her staple looks — were more oversized this time, given a startling sensual charge by metallic sculptural bras worn as chest jewellery that channelled Matisse’s bird paintings.

Bloomin’ lovely

Retro and provocative at the same time, bloomers are definitely back next summer.

Created in 1851 by the American Libby Miller — based on Turkish salvar pantaloons — they freed women up to ride bicycles and horses, though they were mostly worn under dresses.

And it is in that same feminist vein that they have returned to the Paris catwalks, worn often with men’s jackets or shirts in a daring and functional combo.

French label Chloe really ran with the look with a line very sexy lacy bloomers worn under suit jackets and bombers.