Death never looked this good. Across the Fall/Winter 2025 runways, darkness took centre stage. Balenciaga turned the catwalk into a slow, processional march; Armani Privé cloaked romance in shadow; Rick Owens transformed minimalism into ritual. The result felt less like spectacle, more like ceremony. Less trend, more omen.
Fashion has always flirted with passing — of beauty, of relevance, of the body itself. But lately, that fascination has grown louder. The silhouettes are heavier, the fabrics richer, the tones funereal yet exquisite. Velvet, lace and leather: the language of mourning reimagined as power dressing. What once symbolized loss now signals control.
This comeback of the gothic isn’t a coincidence. It mirrors a collective mood — a fatigue with speed, a hunger for depth, a strange allure of the end. As economies tighten and uncertainty looms, the industry seems to be asking: what remains beautiful when everything else begins to fade?
Out of this dusk rises a new kind of beauty: fragile yet deliberate, romantic yet restrained. The world may be unraveling, but fashion has found poetry in the penumbra.
The Return of Dark Romance
Call it noir elegance, mourning chic or simply the current zeitgeist — the dark has taken a new form, steeped in afterlight. Historically confined to underground subcultures, it presently drifts through couture salons and the endless scroll of social media. Designers are embracing the poetic weight of melancholy, building structures that whisper of mystery and layers that seem to breathe desire.
In the hands of Schiaparelli, Ann Demeulemeester or Alexander McQueen, this nocturnal sensibility becomes a study in composure. Draped silks and sculpted tailoring suggest authority without noise, transparency turns into both confession and defence. On red carpets and front rows, Jenna Ortega, Lady Gaga, Anya Taylor-Joy and Gabriette channel that same magnetic gravity; figures of a new twilight femininity that favours tension over innocence.
It isn’t nostalgia for bygone drama, nor rebellion for its own sake. It’s a craving for intensity in an age that flattens nuance. The revival of the nightly isn’t about hiding from the light but about reclaiming agency over how we’re seen.
Beauty in Decay
When certainties collapse and the horizon blurs, style instinctively looks inward. Black echoes contemplation rather than lament; ornament retreats, leaving silence to speak. In these suspended moments, glamour softens. Garments acquire an armorial presence — weighty, intentional, imbued with an intimacy that resists extravagance.
Traces of use reveal a new honesty: a hem undone by movement, a surface dulled by touch, the faint crease where fabric once met skin. Each imperfection offers proof of life, a reminder that permanence was only ever an illusion. The fashion system, built on swiftness and substitution, suddenly pauses and invites a slower gaze. What stays? What erodes with grace?
Perhaps this shift toward patina is not just aesthetic; it can also be read as sentiment. In a culture addicted to acceleration and disposability, signs of continuity feel almost radical. What used to signify weariness now conveys care and allows for a sense of belonging.
To perceive refinement in decline is to acknowledge time as ally, not adversary. Every mark, stain or irregular grain testifies to participation — of maker, wearer, moment. For an industry often obsessed with reinvention, this awareness acts as a quiet correction: beauty doesn’t vanish with use; it absorbs it. What we name decay might, in truth, be evidence of having lived.
Dressing for the End of the World
Fashion has long been a barometer of shared emotion. As the globe tilts off balance, confidence wanes. The recent return to restraint reads less as a fad than as a temperature check — caution disguised as sophistication, a wish to appear composed when stability is scarce.
This instinct for reserve reflects the psychology of a downturn. Spending shifts from statement to strategy; value replaces novelty. Luxury recalibrates itself as durability, not display. The discreet palette that dominates both runways and streets is not nihilism but pragmatism: an armour against volatility, an attempt to remain elegant while the familiar falters.
Yet within this sobriety lies something quietly defiant. When optimism feels naïve, sleekness translates into resistance. Dressing carefully — even conservatively — is not submission to fear but a refusal to unravel.
To embrace instability is to recognise that steadiness is fleeting and taste, like hope, must adapt. In this subdued splendour rests a peculiar comfort: the certainty that finesse can endure crisis, that beauty persists after the lights dim. The end, judging by the looks, has style.