Dto the crown jewel to the atelier brocade, from shirt with ruffles from the flounced skirt to the shoes with bows and jewel buckles. The era of less is more and rigor is over. Now it’s time to go back to dreaming big, with sumptuous clothes and accessories that, at least for once, make you feel like queens.
It is a sumptuous and ultra-feminine fashion, which ranges from the aesthetic suggestions ofgolden era of Versailles to Orlando/Tilda Swinton’s dandy adventures through the ages. The dances, opened by the Dior and Chanel fashion shows, continue in a dreamy waltz between flounces and ruffles, draperies and crackle effects, very thin lace and embroidery that even embellishes the shoes.
Modern queen style
The new Versailles style combines irony and opulence, lightness and structure. The exhibition Marie Antoinette Style at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London celebrates France’s most discussed queen through clothes, portraits and accessories. Her bold taste becomes a symbol of confident femininity and narrative luxury. On the catwalks ofAutumn-Winter 2025/2026 the password is: royalty. After years of minimalism and severe tailoring, fashion returns to celebrate excess, theatricality and eighteenth-century grace.
The lesson of Dior (by Chiuri)
Inaugurating this new fashion chapter is the French fashion house, which in its latest fashion show translates the magnificence of Versailles into a contemporary language. Made of jabot shirts, sculpted flounced skirts, knee-high socks with bow And brocade coats. But the charm of the Queen of France infects the entire fashion panorama: from Paris to Milan, the collections are filled with ruffles, ruffs, martingales and sumptuous fabrics that reinterpret aesthetics à la Marie Antoinette (including its male sequel) in a modern way.
A look from Dior’s Autumn-Winter 2025/2026 collection. (Photo Courtesy of Press Office)
The examples of Chanel and McQueen
Chanelfor example, wears knee-high black leather boots completed with small bows on the catwalk. A perfect match between rigor and romanticism, strength and irony. While McQueen sends a look/sculpture with blockbuster volumes onto the catwalk, accompanied by a pleated ruff, lace stockings with 3D embroidery and silver lace-up ankle boots.
A look from McQueen’s Autumn-Winter 2025/2026 fashion show. (Photo Courtesy of Press Office)
McQueen’s neo-dandy fuses tactile pleasures and Victorian Gothic: fluid silks, raw lace, intimate opulence. Embodying the rebellious spirit of Wilde and Brooks. «For me, dandyism is the supreme act of ornamentation» explained the creative director Sean McGirrat the Paris fashion show on March 8, 2025 «Deeply personal, playful and transgressive. It raises questions about character and identity, idealism and gender. I wanted to explore the enduring relevance of the radical spirit of the dandy in our modern world».
Everyday must-haves
Fluid silk, lace, jewel applications, elaborate embroidery. The exuberance of this trend also draws heavily from rococo imagery. Rich in gold elements that illuminate and convey a sense of opulence and extreme sophistication at first glance. Moschino sign one crown-shaped broochbold and theatrical. The Dodo brand offers a regal charmminiaturized and luminous, which transforms monarchic symbolism into an everyday gesture.
Meanwhile, the volumes of clothing are exaggerated but become lighter. Blouses and shirts adorned with jabot collars and multiple ruffles (Alberta Ferretti and & Other Stories), essential elements of the winter wardrobe, are perfect with cropped jackets and coats in damask fabrics with floral or Tamil patterns.
The shoes keep the pace with cross-stitch embroidery on the pumps, and details such as maxi buckles and rosettes on mules and sling-backs. In an increasingly fast world, every now and then it’s time to take off your sneakers. Fashion plays with the past without nostalgia. It invokes care, slowness, and a new form of freedom.