Designer: Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

In an age where fashion brands compete for clicks, virality, and seasonal spectacle, Vivienne Westwood continues to redefine what it means to exist as both legacy and provocateur. Fall 2025 finds the label not simply presenting a collection, but conducting a kind of worldwide pilgrimage—three distinct shows across three culturally vibrant cities, culminating in a 54-look ready-to-wear collection that collapses borders, time, and category. From the spirited draping of Mumbai to the romantic theatrics of Barcelona to the avant-garde grit of Paris, this season’s offering is less a fashion show and more a philosophical journey. Vivienne Westwood is no longer designing for just a moment—she’s dressing a movement.

Mumbai – Draping in Dialogue

The Mumbai runway show was a love letter to India’s textile heritage—an intentional subversion of colonial fashion tropes. Set against the warm dusk of the Gateway of India, the event opened with models dressed in fluid garments made from khadi, silk, and upcycled cottons. There was no appropriation here, only alignment. Westwood’s team cast an entirely local lineup, many of them first-time models, bringing lived authenticity to each silhouette.

Andreas Kronthaler, longtime creative steward of the brand, spoke to the press before the show about the emotional impact of sourcing fabrics directly from regional artisans. “It’s not about mimicry,” he said. “It’s about conversation—what the cloth remembers, what the hands communicate.” The draping techniques drew influence from saris, lungis, and turbans but were twisted into asymmetric gowns, reconstructed jackets, and sculptural trousers. The showstopper: a raw-edged ivory ensemble with golden zari threads trailing like vines—less a garment, more a wearable archive.

This moment in Mumbai wasn’t just fashion. It was part ceremonial act, part socio-political stance. Vivienne Westwood has long spoken against fast fashion and environmental exploitation. Here, the brand enacted a new ethics of production—one that acknowledged not just global labor, but global imagination.

Barcelona – Bridal Deconstructions

Just one week after Mumbai, Westwood emerged in another radically different setting: Barcelona’s burgeoning bridal fashion week. The choice seemed odd on the surface. Known more for her subversive anti-marriage campaigns than romanticized femininity, Westwood’s presence at a wedding-centric event could’ve read as ironic. Instead, it turned into a masterclass on reframing the tropes of purity, commitment, and spectacle.

The collection in Barcelona was quieter, more introspective. While silhouettes referenced traditional bridalwear—corsetry, tulle, white trains—each look came with a twist. One dress appeared to unravel as the model walked, like a vow being unspoken. Another featured sheer panels over anatomical prints, nodding to vulnerability and transparency. A third, draped like a Greco-Roman column, was worn with hiking boots.

These were not gowns for fairy tales, but for truth-tellers. Love, the show suggested, is political. Marriage is theater. And clothing, especially wedding clothing, should not be about hiding but revealing—ambition, past, defiance. Perhaps most telling was the final look: a white suit with “Property of No One” embroidered across the back in Westwood’s classic red scrawl.

Paris – The Core Collection

Finally, Paris. The city where it all began, and where the brand’s legacy holds the deepest roots. Here, on a stark concrete runway bathed in fog, Andreas Kronthaler presented the official Fall 2025 ready-to-wear line—a 54-look epic that pulled threads from both Mumbai and Barcelona, while weaving in unmistakable Westwood signatures: punk flourishes, historical references, and radical tailoring.

The show was structurally divided into three acts mirroring the brand’s recent itinerary. Early looks featured rich brocades and twisted saris worn like kilts. Midway through, white gowns reappeared, this time cinched with harnesses and paired with latex gloves, as if the bride had joined a revolution. The final segment returned to punk: slashed tartan trousers, combat boots, leather bodices scrawled with slogans like “BUY LESS / FEEL MORE.”

Yet beneath the spectacle, the collection felt deeply grounded. This wasn’t Westwood as myth—it was Westwood as method. Each piece bore meticulous construction: pleats folding like armor, wool coats engineered to cocoon the body, and knitwear that oscillated between vulnerability and menace. There was an unmistakable energy to the casting, too—models of all ages, genders, and sizes, walking not in unison but in attitude. One carried a protest sign. Another blew kisses. A third simply stared down the lens with unflinching resolve.

In a season where many designers leaned into digital immersion, Westwood stayed tactile. Fabrics weren’t polished—they were alive. Surfaces frayed, hems trailed, buttons mismatched on purpose. It was a reminder that clothing isn’t just meant to be seen. It’s meant to do—to provoke, protect, and perform.

The Politics of Fabric

Vivienne Westwood has never made “easy” fashion. Her work demands context, memory, and friction. The Fall 2025 collection leans heavily into this philosophy, not merely through visual motifs, but through material provenance. Each show was site-specific in more than just location—it was materially responsive.

In Mumbai, the fabrics were sourced from Gujarat cooperatives and hand-spun looms. In Barcelona, reclaimed tulle and lace were dyed with wildflowers and oxidized minerals. In Paris, deadstock wool, silk fails, and recycled denim formed the structural base of the garments. The result is a slow-fashion ethos made large—a traveling atelier rooted in resistance.

The sustainability messaging was not plastered on signage. It was embedded in practice. Models wore QR tags that linked to the story of their garments’ making, from fiber to final stitch. There were no plastic linings, no petroleum-based synthetics, no indulgent waste. This was fashion that asked: what does it mean to wear history? To drape yourself in consequence?

Andreas Kronthaler’s Stewardship

Andreas Kronthaler, now the central design voice of the house, continues to evolve in his role. His approach is less about replicating Dame Vivienne’s rebellion and more about embodying its principles in new forms. In this season, his voice is present in the chaos: the overloaded silhouettes, the romantic desecration of archetypes, the juxtaposition of softness with sharpness.

Yet there’s restraint too. Kronthaler knows how to let silence speak—allowing moments of clean tailoring, quiet color stories, or pared-down styling to balance out the maximalist DNA. It’s a rhythm that feels earned after years at the helm, and one that respects Vivienne’s legacy without freezing it in time.

He has also shown a commitment to radical inclusivity—not just in casting, but in global partnerships and local engagements. In an industry still wrestling with issues of elitism and representation, the decision to hold shows in India and Spain, each tailored to the cultural context and community, signals a broader vision for what fashion weeks can be.

Fall 2025 as Global Theatre

What makes this season so remarkable isn’t just the clothes—although they’re among the brand’s finest in years—it’s the way Vivienne Westwood as a house has embraced performance as part of its DNA. These three shows aren’t isolated events. They form a dramaturgy of sorts, a play in three acts that rewrites what a collection can mean.

Each show reveals a different side of the woman who might wear Westwood. She’s an urban bride and a rural radical, a protestor in velvet and a lover in latex. She might be barefoot in Mumbai, veiled in Barcelona, or draped in tartan on a Parisian catwalk—but she’s always marching forward.

The Vivienne Westwood Fall 2025 collection is not content to live on runways. It’s meant to spill into streets, protests, galleries, and everyday revolutions. It does not whisper. It sings, stumbles, marches, and wails. It breathes in the cities it visits and exhales something entirely new.

No Borders, No Apologies

Vivienne Westwood’s Fall 2025 offering feels like the most complete statement of the brand’s current identity: one foot in heritage, one in the future. It is not content with seasonal beauty. It wants something bigger—an act of fashion as geopolitics, as cultural remix, as communal gesture. With shows held on three continents and looks that traverse genre and geography, this is a collection not just seen, but felt.

As the fashion world grows ever more algorithmic and reactive, Vivienne Westwood remains gloriously unreadable. You don’t wear this label to be liked. You wear it because you believe clothing should mean something. Fall 2025 reminds us that the point of fashion isn’t perfection—it’s friction, it’s freedom, and most of all, it’s presence.

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