Fashion loves a fresh start (well, who doesn’t?), and 2025 offered more of them than usual. Over a dozen of the world’s most influential brands and houses handed over the keys and creative control to new creative directors, turning the fashion week calendar into something closer to an exam schedule. And like any group of students under pressure to do well on their capstone, their approaches ranged from meticulous to chaotic and reverent to irreverent. Some dove into archives like dutiful scholars, others attempted to rewrite the syllabus altogether, while a few are still filling gaps in their arguments.
In an industry that canonises both heritage and disruption, the debut collection is a strange ritual: part talent show, part icebreaker, part defence. Designers must reassure loyalists, please critics (both actual and online), and telegraph a long-term vision for the house—all in under 15 minutes. It really is brutal out there.
So, in the spirit of accountability (and fun), we’ve put together report cards instead of rankings for the class of 2025. Scroll to see the assessment below:
Jonathan Anderson at Dior
Previously at: Loewe
Grades:
- Design & Construction: A-
- Interpretation of House Codes: B
- Wearability & Desire: B+
- Show Atmosphere: A-
- Social Momentum: A
Remarks: For a debut with great expectations, Anderson delivered great experiments. His Dior shows (both menswear and womenswear) had the chaos of the brilliant kid who talks in metaphors the rest of the class pretends to understand. He has the talent to sort of reverse-engineer heritage and rebuild it from an unexpected angle; his reinterpretations of icons like the Bar jacket and Delft dress, for instance, were fabulous. Overall, it was clever, charming, and slightly destabilising—which was perhaps the whole point.
Final assessment: Head of Class
