2024 has been a frenetic year in style: in a not-comprehensive list, Givenchy, Chanel, Lanvin, Valentino, Dries Van Noten, Tom Ford, Celine and Bottega Veneta have all had new creative directors named in 2024, while Maison Margiela, Y/Project, and Fendi’s womenswear line are currently without a named designer at the helm (while rumours of further departures abound).
Amid this mood of flux, bubbling under is a newly liberated spirit of eclecticism and experimentation. There was Prada’s boldly individual S/S 2025 collection in Milan, complete with 49 entirely unique looks (‘we thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story,’ said Miuccia Prada’s co-creative director Raf Simons); Alessandro Michele’s expansive and eclectic opening act at Valentino; or an ode to the joy of clothes at Matthieu Blazy’s S/S 2025 show for Bottega Veneta (it would be his final collection for the house, having been appointed as artistic director of Chanel earlier this month). ‘The power of wow,’ he described of the fantastical show.
Here, the Wallpaper* style team pick their own personal fashion moments of 2024, from Rick Owens’ 200-strong Hollywood epic in Paris to an Eyes Wide Shut-inspired JW Anderson show, and a slicked-back beauty look at Saint Laurent.
Jason Hughes, fashion and creative director
‘As a longtime fan of Stanley Kubrick, it was a exciting to see Jonathan Anderson draw inspiration from the director’s final movie, Eyes Wide Shut, for his A/W 2024 menswear collection which was shown in January in Milan. Most intriguing, though, was the collaboration at its heart: interspersed throughout the collection were paintings by Christiane Kubrick, the director’s artist wife, whose works appeared in the backdrop of her husband’s movies (and are particularly prominent in the interiors of Eyes Wide Shut).
‘Anderson said he was inspired by the way in which the paintings represented a kind of compulsion to create, intrigued by the way that despite her husband’s fame she remained an artist working in the margins. “There is something deeply personal about Christiane’s work. I get the feeling that there is no other way – she has to do it,” he said.
‘It was thrilling then, for Wallpaper’s November Art Issue, to visit Childwickbury Manor, the Hertfordshire manor house where Stanley Kubrick lived and worked for much of his career (Christiane still maintains a studio in the home and her paintings decorate almost every wall). Alongside photographer Kalpesh Lathigra, we shot the collection in the home an its grounds for what was perhaps one of the most unique fashion shoots I’ve ever taken part in. I’m so thankful for Christiane and the Kubrick family – especially her grandson Jack Elliot Hobbs – for letting us document such a special place. It’s a day I won’t forget.
‘Another highlight of 2024 was seeing the evolution of Duran Lantink, an Amsterdam-based designer who won the Karl Lagerfeld Award at the LVMH Prize 2024. For the past few seasons he has riffed on archetypal garments in extraordinary style, creating playful sculptural forms which look like the pieces are inflated under the fabric or have emerged from a cartoon. And, while there have certainly been precedents for his work – there is no doubt a debt to the “lumps and bumps” of Rei Kawakubo’s S/S 1997 Comme des Garçons collection – it feels entirely new. I can't wait to see where he goes in 2025.’
Jack Moss, fashion features editor
‘I always love attending Rick Owens’ shows – the American designer has an innate understanding of the spectacle of fashion, staging monumental presentations on the forecourt of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo which are at once strange, glamourous, rousing and eerie, and always entirely in his own design vernacular (hence why they attract hordes of black-clad disciples Owens affectionately calls his ‘freaks’). He is a true iconoclast.
‘In 2024 we were treated to two very different types of Rick Owens shows: the first, early in the year, saw him open the door to own Paris home, a “concrete palace” in the former French Socialist Party headquarters on the city’s Left Bank. It was about as intimate as a runway show can get: guests sat on his monolithic furniture, while a cast of Owens’ community walked through the various rooms – a twisted take on the traditional salon show.
’The designer said the move towards closeness was a response to the “barbaric times through which we are living”. Clothing suggested a feeling of intimacy, albeit in Owens’ subversive style – enormous shaggy twists of fabric, cashmere “space suits” and delicate branch-like structures adorned with sequins – as did the casting, a community of collaborators which he described “creatives who live their aesthetic defiantly and completely”. I know we all felt lucky to be invited into his world.
‘Later in the year, in June, an altogether different spectacle: a 200-strong take on the Hollywood epic, staged back at the Palais de Tokyo amid plumes of smoke. He called the parading figures – largely cast from local art schools – his “white satin army of love”. It was a response, he said, to the small capacity of the shows at home (he presented both his A/W 2025 men’s and women’s collections in the space), positing the curative effects of being en masse once again. “I felt bad about making attendance so restricted, so this time around I wanted to welcome everyone,” he said of the spectacular menswear show, which would be repeated for his womenswear show in September with additional confetti. “Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes expressing our unity and reliance on each other is a good thing to remember too”.’
Hannah Tindle, beauty and grooming editor
‘I loved Anthony Vaccarello’s tribute to Yves Saint Laurent himself at Saint Laurent S/S 2025, with exaggerated double-breasted suiting and thick-rimmed glasses. The show’s hair and make-up by Duffy and Pat McGrath was a masterful demonstration of restrained runway beauty.
‘Tapping into the androgynous mood, models were given slicked-back styles or nonchalant blow dries. (Although, look 41 included peek-a-boo waves à la Veronica Lake). For the face, McGrath created a flawless canvas alongside barely-there contouring and lightly pencilled brows. Lips had been kept the same shade as the model’s natural skin tone and mascara – if any were used at all – was untraceable.’
