Running a fashion label in 2025 means existing in a perpetual state of creative time-lag—working in the future while being haunted by the present. For Natalia Alaverdian, the designer behind A.W.A.K.E. Mode, Fall 2025 became not just a collection, but a cinematic act of rebellion. In the face of global disarray and digital overload, she turned inward. “Clothes are my means of escape,” she explained at her Paris showroom presentation on the Left Bank. “You don’t have to watch the world falling apart if you work 15 hours a day.”

Born in Moscow to Ukrainian and Armenian parents, but now based in London, Alaverdian occupies the kind of liminal cultural space that makes for rich creative soil. This season, she buried herself in the DIY ethos of Robert Rodriguez, the cult filmmaker who famously shot El Mariachi on a shoestring budget at age 23 and then documented it in Rebel Without a Crew. The message resonated. “The economy of means reeled me in,” she said. In other words, Fall 2025 was born not out of indulgence, but from restraint and rebellion—and the result is nothing short of cinematic.

Mood and Motif: From Dutch Tradition to Origami

Alaverdian is known for her flair for odd pairings. Fall 2025 is no exception. The collection dances along the axis of Dutch traditional costume and Japanese origami, two cultural signifiers that might not seem to belong on the same mood board. Yet in her hands, they intertwine with sculptural elegance.

Circle Skirts and Rotor-Blade Dresses

One of the strongest visual statements in the collection is the return of the label’s bestselling circle skirts—reimagined as architectural, almost kinetic pieces. These rotor-blade dresses featured in both Prince of Wales check and black with sharp white topstitching, creating a sense of movement even when still. They hung suspended on the body like deconstructed windmills or magnified calligraphy strokes. The effect was hypnotic, especially when styled with equally angular footwear—namely, a clog-like boot with an upturned toe and shearling lining, fusing the humble slipper and traditional clog into one otherworldly silhouette.

Eastern Angles and Western Nostalgia

While the Dutch influence brought in structure, origami introduced poise and precision. Folded seams, sharp pleats, and layered panels ran through the collection like coded architecture. It wasn’t costume, nor was it cosplay. Rather, Alaverdian distilled cultural motifs into form. An asymmetrically pleated coat in cream crepe stood out as a kind of armor for quiet warriors, while a minimalist evening dress folded delicately at the waist created volume without weight.

The Pieces: Deconstruction Meets Utility

A.W.A.K.E. Mode’s Fall 2025 collection wasn’t about trends. It was about twisting the classics—taking garments we think we know and spinning them 90 degrees, literally and metaphorically.

The “Jacket Dress”

A deceptively simple concept—what if a jacket was the dress? Alaverdian’s version came with lapels at both the neckline and the hem, creating a loop of tailoring that felt like a visual pun. Worn solo, it offered double-breasted drama with feminine utility. When paired with wide trousers or styled as a layering piece, it hinted at the uniform of a surrealist officer.

Sideways Polo & Hybrid Outerwear

Perhaps the collection’s cheekiest piece was a polo shirt with the placket pulled off-center, spiraling across the chest like a trompe-l’œil gesture. Elsewhere, hybridization took over: a bomber jacket/puffer fusion carried the puffed arms of après-ski gear with the zippered body of aviation classics. Practicality, yes—but always with a tilt.

Another star piece was a trench capelet, sliced asymmetrically so it flared away from the body like a wing in motion. Paired with dark-wash, wide-leg flares, the silhouette combined 1970s drama with futuristic confidence.

The Argyle Mutation

Sweaters were given the Frankenstein treatment too. A traditional argyle knit was reworked with mismatched sleeves—one ballooned, the other fitted—subverting preppy nostalgia in favor of fluid asymmetry. Knits became not just cozy layers but psychological topography, charting a body’s lopsided rhythm in a lopsided world.

The Evening Edit: Heavy Crepes and Field Coats

Alaverdian’s eveningwear doesn’t whisper; it articulates. The standout evening piece—a heavy bonded white crepe coat with a snap closure—was elegance anchored in engineering. It moved like sculpture and clicked shut like armor.

But for all its polish, there was also grit. A quilted field coat with oversized A-line cut and exaggerated pockets suggested survival wear for the red carpet. Meanwhile, a leather interpretation of the trench capelet brought a cinematic, even film noir energy to the mix.

It’s in these juxtapositions that A.W.A.K.E. Mode thrives: between severity and softness, tradition and rupture, costume and uniform.

The Psychology of Escape

While fashion often traffics in escapism, Alaverdian’s version isn’t about fantasy worlds or utopias. It’s about psychological insulation—building a wardrobe that allows the wearer to survive, even flourish, when the world outside offers no guarantee of clarity.

“I had to detach from everything to come back into focus,” she said. And that detachment is echoed throughout the collection—not as apathy, but as a kind of emotional strategy. The garments are layered, folded, protective. They hide and reveal, shield and expose, all at once. They allow for ambiguity.

A woman in this collection is both samurai and shepherdess. A man is both poet and pilot. Gender, as in most A.W.A.K.E. Mode seasons, is fluid but never formless. Each piece carries tension—between performance and privacy, strength and surrender.

Fall 2025 in Context: The Age of Minimal Maximalism

Alaverdian’s Fall 2025 collection arrives at a time when fashion is split between two poles: on one end, hyper-minimalism, and on the other, AI-generated chaos. A.W.A.K.E. Mode offers a third route: minimal maximalism—a tight vocabulary of pieces with expansive semantic range.

There is no excess for the sake of opulence. But neither is there a retreat into invisible normcore. Each garment is deliberate. Each fold speaks. Each placket pivots.

It’s this refusal to submit to the binary of “quiet luxury” versus “fashion spectacle” that makes Alaverdian’s work feel urgently relevant. She’s not designing for noise or for silence. She’s designing for the hum of living.

Material Notes: Texture as Tension

What binds the collection beyond silhouette is texture. Fabrics are weighted, layered, and intentional.

• Wool gabardines provided structured flow.
• Bonded crepes added sculptural volume.
• Lightly padded quilted nylon delivered warmth and graphic punch.
• Cotton blends lent fluidity to trousers and capes alike.

Where one sleeve slouched, another stood upright. Where one hem folded under itself, another splayed out like a fan. In every gesture, the material was treated like the co-author of the idea, not just its canvas.

Rebel With a Couture Crew

Fall 2025 is A.W.A.K.E. Mode’s most cohesive argument for clothing as intentional escape. Alaverdian is not trying to out-shout the chaos of the world; she’s building an internal language of resistance. Her clothes are not just stylish—they are philosophical.

They tell stories through seams. They rewrite heritage through shape. They allow the wearer to inhabit contradictions—elegant and strange, simple and studied, formal and feral.

In a time of spectacle fatigue and fashion disillusionment, A.W.A.K.E. Mode gives us something braver: aesthetic sovereignty.

You don’t have to shout. You just have to show up, dressed like yourself—but slightly more dreamlike, slightly more armored, slightly more awake.

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