Why Is Fashion So Schizo?

The fall runways were unhinged. But that might not be such a bad thing.

- JESSICA IREDALE

The sweet, soft, double-ply cashmere security blanket of quiet luxury that has swaddled fashion for the past few seasons is gone. Maybe it's been shadow-banned. Perhaps it was mauled to tatters by the mad dogs of unstable markets. Whatever the case, soothing beige understatement has been replaced by something more brazen and complicated. The fall 2025 collections are defined by imaginative incoherence, wild mood swings, and extreme archetypes—to a degree that demands diagnosis.

What is behind this acute case of fashion schizophrenia? The personalities are polar and multiple: British bohemian It girls at Chloé. Big, rich Texans at Schiaparelli. Colorfully committed members of the Audubon Society at Thom Browne. Belly dancers displaced from the set of Dune at Alaïa. Sensual vampires at Tom Ford. Fittingly, this season the Prada woman is embracing an obvious nervous breakdown.

“There’s no one path in this moment,” says Rickie De Sole, vice president and fashion director at Nordstrom. Searching for a dominant color, silhouette, attitude, or trend only makes the lack of common ground more glaring. Seeking reason in the mayhem, it feels apropos to cite an observation credited to original style despot Louis XIV: “Fashion is the mirror of history.” When chaos rules the culture, expect dysregulation at the défilé.