The 2025 Luxury Report: The Brands, Items, and Trends Defining Designer Fashion
This year was the year of creative director debuts, as over 20 designers took the helm at the biggest fashion houses across the industry. Many of the new appointments were at major heritage brands, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, and Demna at Gucci, which were among the most-anticipated runway shows of the year. These shakeups at the top are clearly redefining style this year. It’s also a pivotal moment that will reshape where fashion is headed in the coming decades. We also saw shifts in what is resonating in the luxury market as shoppers are more heavily invested in collecting fine jewelry, special archival pieces, and nostalgia-coded fashion, and are increasingly drawn to craftsmanship and heritage.
To examine luxury fashion in 2025 with a closer lens, we spoke with industry experts and pulled data to take a more granular look back. In Who What Wear's annual Luxury Report, we discuss what resonated most strongly in designer fashion in 2025—including the brands that made a big mark, the impossible-to-track-down It items that dominated the style set, and the rising trends and themes that shaped the luxury market this year.
Ahead, read everything to know about luxury fashion from 2025 and look forward to where it's headed in 2026.
The biggest fashion brands of the year fell into one of two categories: luxury houses with renewed energy from creative director debuts, or heritage houses that tapped into the timeless style inherent to the brand. Firstly, shake-ups at the top of some of the major fashion houses brought debut collections to the runways. Some of the most successful shows at brands including Chanel, Dior, Bottega Veneta, and Celine infused the archives with new visions for the fashion houses and brought them to the forefront of the fashion conversation.
Though this wave of change from new creative directors brought fresh ideas and excitement to brands, designers who doubled down on timelessness and heritage also rose to the top. “There is a massive interest in anything coming from Ralph Lauren, which has continued to gain traction and momentum amongst luxury shoppers,” shares Julia Rabinowitsch, founder of The Millennial Decorator. “The house is also reprising their archives, creating drops of pieces featured in previous runway shows, which has been extremely interesting to watch. As global luxury trends ebb toward timeless rather than trendy, RL’s aspirational aesthetic has found fresh relevance with an extremely inspired audience.” Shoppers are opting for long-term investments over trend-driven impulse purchases, so brands such as Ralph Lauren, Hermès, Cartier, and The Row that embody timelessness have continued to resonate in stronger and stronger ways.
Polo Ralph Lauren
Oxford Shirt
Which items dominated in 2025 from a sales point of view? Experts weigh in. “Chanel’s 25 bags dominated our DMs, and continue to do so as I write this,” luxury product sourcer Gab Waller shares. “Every size, every color, every fabrication, clients wanted them all.” The buzzy Chanel 25 bag launched this spring and topped Who What Wear’s predictions as the bag to know for 2025. Since its debut in the fashion house’s spring/summer 2025 runway show, the bag has continued to appear in new versions in each collection, so it’s an investment-worthy style we expect to remain popular far beyond 2025.
Younger shoppers are also entering the luxury market, and there are some key brands and specific buys appealing to them. “Heritage brands like Ralph Lauren and Cartier are appealing to younger and younger customers, with many shopping both brands as their entrance into the luxury world,” shares Rabinowitsch. At Ralph Lauren, the brand’s iconic preppy polo shirts and cable knits reached a new level of demand, as did its newly released Play bag. For Cartier, timepieces proved to be especially popular, including everything from the classic Tank and Panthère styles to the reimagined Baigoire.
