The Luxury Fashion and Jewellery Trends To Know for 2025

WATCHES AND JEWELLERY  -  AVRIL GROOM

Slimmed-down watches

Watch sizes are going down for both sexes but especially for men. The 45mm behemoths now look ostentatious and dated, whereas a slim 36mm dress style like the Hermès Cut hits the non-gendered spot. To stay ahead, red carpet habitués – from Harry Styles to Barry Keoghan – dive deep into models designed for women, like Audemars Piguet’s new Royal Oak Mini (23mm) or Cartier’s Tank Américaine Mini (28mm). In the race to the smallest, women can try Jaeger Le-Coultre’s famed, 12.22mm 101 (mechanical but expensive) or Cartier’s 18.7mm diamond Baignoire (less so but quartz).

Shape shifters

For decades the default watch design has been round, but no longer.  As simple, circular timepieces become indistinguishable, watch the rise of shapes used in the Art Deco era or the mid-20th century (current inspo favourite). Cartier has never been shackled to the circle – their Tank and Santos are definitive and undergo frequent updating, while mid-century models are behind Piaget’s new, trapezoid Swinging Sautoir or Patek Philippe’s black-dialled Golden Ellipse on a complex chain bracelet. The latest shapes are asymmetric (Audemars Piguet Re-Master) or organic (Dior’s Gem Dior) – an intriguing future direction.

Enamel returns

Rarely does an ancient craft become a marker of modernity but enamelled jewellery just has. From about 1300 BCE to the early 20th- century period of Art Nouveau and Fabergé, complex, kiln-fired enamel decorated and coloured precious metals. Now a simpler new version – cold enamel – is creating day-glo shaded mini Fabergé egg pendants, cleverly contrasting ‘haloes’ on semiprecious gems on rings from Bea Bongiasca or Robinson Pelham and defining details on Boodles’ Fifth Avenue high jewellery rings. Much as Art Deco enamel is loved, this is a fresh new look.

FASHION - JOSH SIMS

Pastel-shaded menswear

Menswear’s relationship with colour is a love/ hate one. And that’s hardly surprising when most men instinctively retreat to the classic ‘masculine’ shades of navy, charcoal, black and white. Chromophobia – a fear of colours – is even more prevalent among men. At least they can relax a little, knowing that 2025’s take on embracing colour is all about the muted and wash-out. Pastel shades of pale yellow, mint and leaf green, soft pink, baby blue, terracotta and lilac are coming at you from everyone from cerebral Comme des Garçons to lush Gucci, from Ralph Lauren to Neil Barrett. Will these dampened tones prove the gateway to the eventual embrace of eye-watering neon brights? Probably not. But fashion has to keep trying.

Whimsical womenswear

It’s probably sexist these days to say that inside every grown woman there is still a small girl who wants to dress like a princess or a fairy, or, better still, a fairy princess.  Well, those grown women are in luck: 2025 brings a positive Disney Castle-load of the hyper-feminine, long and floaty in ethereal, silky, semi-transparent fabrics. There’s a lot of bare shoulder, plenty of flounces and ruffles, puffball sleeves and skirts and – a big trend in itself – fringes. In other words, there are a lot of dresses that would work extremely well for the Met Gala, but less so for a quick dash to Waitrose (unless that’s your thing). All the same, the high romance of it all is undeniable, and a much-needed welcome antidote to, well, just about everything else going on in the world.

Man bags everywhere

It can’t have escaped designers’ attention that menswear has a lot of pockets, because a/ men love pockets and, b/ they’re trained to carry only what they can put in said pockets, so tend to be minimalistic in what they take with them. And yet 2025 sees the man bag trend in overdrive, with a specific emphasis on the shoulder style – from knitted to teeny-weeny, from graphic versions made from Hermès-style scarves to whimsical ones mimicking the look of a beef-roll penny loafer. What, though, do men have to put in these bags? Expect them to be borrowed, and soon, by their ladyfolk.