When fashion was just a big performance

Designers seemed to care only for visibility this year and did little to take fashion forward

- Pooja Singh

Rapper André 3000 arrived at the 2025 Met Gala in a Burberry jumpsuit, carrying a trash bag and with a piano strapped to his back.

If there's one word to sum up what fashion offered this year, it is “blah”.

It had its moments: when Amit Aggarwal turned vintage Benaras brocade into dresses and corsets, when Diljit Dosanjh channelled maharaja vibes at the Met Gala, when robots hit the runway at a Falguni Shane Peacock show, when Nancy Tyagi owned the red carpet at Cannes in an embellished dress she designed herself, when Ishaan Khatter showed us how tailored suits should be worn. But such instances were rare, and none widened the imagination or vocabulary of fashion. Instead, much of fashion, from runway to red carpet, felt engineered for visibility. What mattered was not how a garment was created, but how quickly it circulated.