Is 2025 Shaping Up as Fashion’s Next Big Bang?
WWD
30 Sept 2025
Industry observers reflect on what has changed since 1997, the last time the fashion industry saw this much creative upheaval.
In Paris alone, no fewer than eight brands will stage their first runway shows for women’s ready-to-wear collections under new designers. The industry hasn’t seen this much upheaval since 1997, the last comparable seminal moment in fashion.
As Dior, Chanel, Loewe, Balenciaga, Maison Margiela, Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier and Carven prepare to write a new chapter, WWD delved into its archives and spoke to industry experts about what has changed in three decades, and what — if anything — remains the same.
The first takeaway? It’s crisis, but not as we know it. In 1997, Vogue Paris hailed the spring haute couture season as the shock that Paris needed in order to jolt it back into its leadership position as the global capital of fashion, at a time when its crown appeared to be slipping.
