There’s a reason why every Aimé Leon Dore drop feels like a return home. But with Spring/Summer 2025’s Drop 4, founder Teddy Santis doesn’t just bring us back—he brings us back in time. To be specific: New York in the 1990s, where sidewalks were runways, tailoring met Timberlands, and hip-hop met Ivy League.

For Drop 4, Aimé Leon Dore once again straddles its unique line between contemporary elegance and nostalgic realism, delivering a tightly curated capsule of apparel and accessories that wear like love letters to Queens, Harlem, and downtown Manhattan. From wide-leg pleated trousers to co-branded caps, this collection isn’t about flash—it’s about form, familiarity, and flair.

A Look Into the Moodboard: NYC, 1990s, and Cultural Cadence

Before this collection even hits the rack, it lives on film. And the campaign—shot on medium-format and styled with intentional looseness—tells the story of a city that never had to try to be cool. It’s the way a father’s blazer hangs over a Champion hoodie. The way uptown teens once wore moc-toe boots with Cartier frames. It’s public parks, corner stores, stoops, and Subarus.

The references in Drop 4 are clear but never costume. Loosely cut linen suits, polo shirts with crest embroidery, varsity jackets with collegiate appliqués, and crochet knits all nod to an era when style was inherited, repurposed, and remixed.

And yet, this is not cosplay. It’s a reconstruction, informed by Santis’ ongoing commitment to elevated materials, local community storytelling, and timeless color harmony.

Garment Breakdown: From Polo Courts to Park Benches

The Boxy Blazer

Tailored but roomy, with exaggerated shoulders and a soft drape, ALD’s boxy blazer in Drop 4 feels like a carryover from an East Coast family photo album. Made with Italian wool-linen blend, it’s fully lined and adorned with ALD crest buttons. Best worn open over a baseball tee or a button-down half tucked.

Relaxed Double-Pleated Trousers

These aren’t your uncle’s slacks—except they kind of are. The double-pleat relaxed trousers are cut wide at the thigh with a taper just gentle enough to create shape. The fabric is breezy, the finish matte, and they drop perfectly over loafers, mocs, or vintage runners.

Classic Knits and Embroidered Polos

ALD excels at knitwear, and Drop 4 adds crocheted polo knits, rugby-stripe V-necks, and contrast-collar crewnecks in jewel tones. The embroidery is clean. The palette feels like iced tea and pavement heat.

Outerwear to Transition the Season

A standout piece: the varsity jacket in navy with olive leather sleeves, channeling classic Fordham prep with South Bronx attitude. Satin bombers and cotton coaches round out a transitional outerwear selection for cool nights and breezy weekends.

Accessories: Finish With Intention

Aimé Leon Dore has become known for its accessory game, and Drop 4 doesn’t disappoint.

• Suede penny loafers handmade in Portugal with gold-foil branding.
• Leather belts with gold-tone ALD buckles, built to crackle over time.
• Five-panel caps and dad hats, co-branded with NYC institutions in navy, beige, and emerald.
• Canvas totes that look good folded under one arm or packed for the train to Montauk.

In short: everything you need to polish without posturing.

Footwear: More Than Sneakers

The Drop 4 lookbook leans further into non-sneaker footwear, emphasizing low-profile loafers, deck shoes, and classic lace-ups that recall pre-Y2K East Coast elegance.

That’s not to say the kicks are absent. A new ALD x New Balance 990v6 colorway drops alongside the collection in “Queens Grey”—a subtle nod to sidewalks and chain-link courts.

Campaign Cast: Real Faces, Real Places

The faces of this campaign matter. Santis continues his habit of casting real people with real NYC DNA: barbers, poets, corner-store legends, chess players, grandmothers. One image shows a Dominican dad tying his son’s tie in a two-button linen suit. Another features an elderly woman in tortoiseshell sunglasses holding a bodega coffee.

Retail Activation: Mulberry Street to Midtown

To coincide with Drop 4, ALD has re-styled its flagship on Mulberry Street, recreating a 1997 record shop interior. Stackable crates hold folded polos. Cassettes and incense rest on glass counters beside stitched leather gloves. A branded gumball machine dispenses brass lapel pins for a quarter.

Meanwhile, a Pop-Up Gallery in Midtown will host “NYC 94–99,” a photo show curated by Teddy Santis, featuring archival imagery from early ALD moodboards, downtown photographers, and film stills.

The Commerce of Cultural Capital

What makes Aimé Leon Dore stand apart in the world of drops, collabs, and “quiet luxury” is this: it’s never just selling clothes—it’s selling memory. A feeling. A city. A knowing glance passed between those who lived it and those who wish they had.

Drop 4 isn’t about flash or virality. It’s about texture. Proportion. Rhythm. It’s about knowing what a sockless loafer means in mid-June. It’s commerce, but it’s also curation.

Impression

Aimé Leon Dore Spring/Summer 2025 Drop 4 is more than a capsule. It’s a generational bridge—linking borough pride, intergenerational style codes, and the modern need for clarity in chaos.

Whether you’re in Queens or Copenhagen, Lower East Side or London, the pieces feel familiar—like something once worn by a neighbor, an uncle, a friend’s older brother who always smelled like aftershave and wore his collar popped.

And that’s the magic: ALD doesn’t imitate the past. It reinhabits it. And in doing so, it gives the present a little more soul.

Drop 4 is now available at aimeleondore.com and the ALD flagship store in New York City. Select items are also stocked at SSENSE, END., and Dover Street Market. For visuals, follow @aimeleondore on Instagram.

 

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