PARIS — Will 2025 go down in history as another fashion Big Bang?

In Paris alone, no fewer than eight brands will stage their first runway shows for women’s ready-to-wear collections under new designers. The industry hasn’t seen this much upheaval since 1997, the last comparable seminal moment in fashion.

As Dior, Chanel, Loewe, Balenciaga, Maison Margiela, Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier and Carven prepare to write a new chapter, WWD delved into its archives and spoke to industry experts about what has changed in three decades, and what — if anything — remains the same.

The first takeaway? It’s crisis, but not as we know it. In 1997, Vogue Paris hailed the spring haute couture season as the shock that Paris needed in order to jolt it back into its leadership position as the global capital of fashion, at a time when its crown appeared to be slipping.

Alexandre Samson, who curated the “1997 Fashion Big Bang” exhibition at the Palais Galliera fashion museum in 2023, where he is director of haute couture and contemporary collections, said that while it was a year of major economic crisis, especially in Southeast Asia, it did not compare to the challenges facing the sector today.

It was a year that marked the rise of a new generation of designers in ready-to-wear and couture, the opening of Paris concept store Colette, the deaths of Gianni Versace and Princess Diana — and the upending of the fashion calendar, with New York City moving from the end of the season to the beginning.

Today, the retail sector is grappling with a slowdown in spending in China, but this time against a backdrop of war in Ukraine and in Gaza, and the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re also dealing with rising political extremism, with even fashion experiencing an identity crisis and regressing in how it represents women and minorities. In that sense, 1997, with all its nervous energy and occasional negativity, now feels almost naïve compared to what we’re facing today,” Samson said.

Erwan Rambourg, global head of consumer and retail research at HSBC, said the influx of new designers, coming after two years of waning creativity and ballooning prices that he dubbed “greedflation,” should generate some traffic that has been “painfully” missing as millions of aspirational consumers dropped out of the market.

“Luxury’s role is to capture the cultural zeitgeist: time for the sector to up its game and make us dream again,” he said.

Bigger and Faster

Next, there is the question of scope.

Rambourg signaled three major evolutions: the move from a European industry with a strong Japanese following to a global sector driven by U.S. and Chinese clients; a switch from wholesale to retail, with greater vertical integration granting brands more pricing power, driving up margins, and a polarization of players, with the size of big groups or brands creating much higher barriers to entry.

In 1997, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton kicked off its 10th anniversary with two transformational designer debuts: John Galliano at Dior and Alexander McQueen at Givenchy. That year, it would hire Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors at Céline and Narciso Rodriguez at Loewe, signaling the takeover of storied French luxury brands by British and American talents.

At that time, the group logged annual revenues of 7.3 billion euros. By 2024, it had become the world’s biggest luxury group, with sales of 84.7 billion euros — more than 10 times the 1997 amount. Kering, then known as PPR, was still two years away from acquiring Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent in 1999, marking the start of its journey to becoming a luxury pure player.

“We’re looking at double-digit billion-dollar fashion companies, which literally puts them in the same space as some pharmaceutical companies, so when you start looking at industries with that financial power, you realize that fashion today can’t act the same way as in ’97,” said fashion curator Pamela Golbin. “The rules have changed.”

Crucially, designers are no longer required to produce just clothes, as luxury brands have broadened their remit to sectors including sports, hospitality, entertainment and interior design.

“They are artistic directors, so their role is to align all of these very different narratives into one story that can bring some clarity to the final consumer. They also have so many different collections where they can express what they need, and so many tools that have nothing to do with clothes — whether it be candles, objects, accessories, films,” said Golbin.

She cited the example of Demna’s debut at Gucci during Milan Fashion Week, which took the form of an online look book followed by a star-studded film premiere in lieu of a traditional runway outing, or the appointment two years ago of musician Pharrell Williams as creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton.

“We’re really going into a period, for me, where fashion is the gateway to culture,” she said. “Fashion’s dialogue with the consumer is so much bigger now, it’s almost like clothes is the last on the list.”

That change has been accelerated by the advent of social media, which has thrust designers into a bigger arena, said Linda Fargo, senior vice president of fashion at Bergdorf Goodman.

“The consumer is far more connected. It goes without saying that the appetite and subsequent avid consumption of fashion kept raising the stakes, in tandem with the hyper connectivity of the media cycle, thanks to the internet,” she said.

“Cultural relevance became as important as sales. Reactions to collections are now both instant and global, making risk or gain change exponentially,” Fargo added. “With all that, disruption and creativity, just like in 1997, is as important and possible as ever.”

Bring In the New

Indeed, hunger for newness is perhaps the only constant in an industry that thrives on change. Consider WWD’s preview of the spring couture season in January 1997.

“In the battle for publicity that haute couture has become, clients are less important than ever. What really counts is which designer can manage to get the most attention,” wrote William Middleton, the paper’s then-Paris bureau chief. Sound familiar?

In 1997, a new crop of designers was emerging, with the debuts of Alber Elbaz at Guy Laroche, Martine Sitbon, Raf Simons, Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Olivier Theyskens, Stella McCartney at Chloé, where she brought Phoebe Philo to assist her, and a French designer on a six-month trial contract at Balenciaga: Nicolas Ghesquière.

Nowadays, the likes of Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, and Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela are heralding another generational changeover.

The transition is especially significant at Chanel, where Blazy’s arrival marks the end of the Karl Lagerfeld era, after a transitional period under his right-hand woman, Virginie Viard. Blazy’s appointment comes against the backdrop of a long-term succession plan set in motion with the arrival in 2021 of Leena Nair as global chief executive officer of the brand.

“You have a whole new system that’s being put into place,” Golbin remarked.

The difference between 2025 and 1997 is that with the massification of luxury, the men in suits running the show have less appetite for risk.

When Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, entrusted the jewel in his crown to Galliano, a rebel designer from London, it was a make-or-break play. Anderson, on the other hand, is joining Dior after a highly successful decade at the helm of LVMH stablemate Loewe, and must find a way to jumpstart a stalled juggernaut without veering off course.

Social media also amplifies the risk of a misstep. “Designers have much bigger megaphones than before. With social comes reputational risk, scrutiny and the obligation to ensure you are not rubbing some consumers the wrong way,” Rambourg cautioned.

In that context, designers are more likely to play it safe, Samson said.

“The industry is clearly undergoing a reappraisal, and at the same time, there is no visibility on the economic front,” he said. “Designers are feeling that anxiety, so it’s no surprise they’re heading for the safety of calm, familiar ground.”

There have been exceptions, of course, like Dario Vitale’s divisive first collection for Versace, which had the merit of placing the brand at the center of conversation.

Masters of Buzz

If it feels like designers were operating almost in a vacuum before Instagram and TikTok appeared, that wasn’t entirely the case, industry observers said.  

“Galliano and McQueen were under a lot of pressure to grab the media spotlight — and it worked. People tend to forget it now, but McQueen had quite a confrontational relationship with the press,” Samson recalled.

Witness his interview with WWD’s Bridget Foley, where McQueen responded to the hype and anticipation surrounding his Givenchy debut with typical bravado. “At the end of the day, I’m not going to design a dress that will protect you from nuclear fallout,” he said. “It’s merely clothes. The utmost thing that you can do as an artist or designer is please yourself. If I’m happy with a garment, that’s all that matters. You can like it, or you can lump it.”

Golbin noted that even back then, designers were savvy about creating buzz with events staged in off-the-map venues, interviews with foreign press and destination shows.

“Designers did speak to their audience in a very specific way, and fashion shows as well helped in that narrative. The narrative today, obviously, is so much more sophisticated, so much more rapid, but the basics were already there,” she said.

One area where little progress has been made is in the representation of women. Following Rachel Scott’s debut collection for Proenza Schouler in New York City, and Louise Trotter’s first show for Bottega Veneta in Milan, there is not a single new female designer on the Paris show calendar for spring 2026.

“Of course I’m shocked. There’s so little attention given to these women, and at some point, we also need to ask the question — do they even want to play this game? Maybe there’s a lack of desire to engage with a system that is still largely run by men,” pondered Samson.

“The number of female CEOs is still low. There weren’t many in ’97 either, but back then, it was just the way things were. And now here we are in 2025, having pretty much the same conversation. The difference is, we’re much more aware of the problem,” he said.

While the challenges are clear, determined optimism seems to be the order of the day — for buyers, at least.

“As retailers, we’re wildly excited about this historical and unprecedented season, and believe that ultimately creativity and disruption are the heartbeat of fashion, and we know that our connected clients are in it right along with us,” said Fargo. “We are deeply optimistic about the changes and are pivoting with open minds and excitement.”