Forget Winter Blues, AW25 is All About Winter Pink
About a decade ago, as I'm sure you remember, Millennial Pink was hot. So hot.
The Wes Anderson-esque hue was omnipresent across menswear and womenswear, tech and interior design. Naturally, we overindulged. Pink – in its entirety! – fell out of favour by the end of the 2010s. Temporarily, of course.
In 2022, Pierpaolo Piccoli decided to make magenta the Valentino colour by painting (almost) an entire collection in the colour and then dousing Sebastian Stan, Glenn Close, Jenna Ortega and other VIPs in the near-neon for the Met Gala.
A year later, Barbie Ken summer (2023) continued to usher in pink's inevitable return to the spotlight, followed by Wicked winter where Ariana Grande became an ambassador for the colour's image overhaul, which has really picked up steam over the past month.
Yes, if the autumn/winter 2025 men's shows and lookbooks taught us one thing, it's that pink's hard re-launch is forthcoming. For those who wear menswear, at least.
Here are some of the ways fashion's vanguards are encouraging you to incorporate shades of pink into your wardrobe later this year.
Dior
Whilst it's true that no colour should be confined to a season, pink is decidedly spring-coded. That's unless you venture into sugar plum fairy territory, colours the youth of the late 1930s/early 1940s and today might['ve] dub[bed] “Glinda pink”. This is exactly what Kim Jones has done at Dior.
The British designer, who has just stepped down from his role as creative director of the Parisian fashion house, suggests grounding the fairytale hue by pairing pink jackets, cardis, blazer and other above-the-belt layers with black shoes and trousers to achieve super-modern sophistication.
Louis Vuitton
Before millennial pink, there was bubblegum pink – a tint absolutely paramount to Y2K style. It's that playful hue which Pharrell and guest co-creative designer, Nigo (the IT duo of 2000's streetwear scene) have splashed across their already sought-after autumn/winter 2025 collection for Louis Vuitton.
In some looks, they evoke nostalgia via pink baseball jackets and Elle Woods-style sunglasses; in others, they create for the future, spreading a bright strawberry hue atop the currently buzzy barn jacket silhouette and offering a workwear-inspired two-piece suit in pink Damier print.
Kenzo
As creative director of Kenzo, Nigo had a second opportunity to champion pink for
autumn/winter 2025, which he seized.
The Japanese designer incorporated cutesy blossom tones into his latest line for the Parisian label, endorsing pink accenting by way of a pink fluffy overcoat, a pair of pink carpenter trousers or, if you're shy, some pink socks.
Wales Bonner
Grace Wales Bonner isn't usually one to entertain trends, but even she's blushing for the season. A highlight of the British-Jamaican's autumn/winter 2025 lookbook is a shot centered on a dreamy button-shoulder knit in a flamingo tone that contrasts against a pair of gold and fuchsia Mary Jane-style trainers.
Fuchsia also comes to her popular line of graphic T-shirts later this year. Like most of her designs, the tee in question, which reads “Infinite Soul”, looks plucked straight out of the Seventies.
Charles Jeffrey Loverboy
The 1970s is also where Charles Jeffrey Loverboy discovered his pink-for-winter inspiration. “If you think about a lot of the punk iconography from the seventies – a lot of the posters, the album covers, the X-ray specs, for example – there's always that really strong magenta,” said the Scottish maverick whilst I was chatting with him recently.
“It's used [in this new collection] in an underground [...] way.” To provide context, the press release for the season says the clothes unsettle “the foundations of English respectability, reworking its tailoring and materials into something both playful and provocative”. Judging by the looks, such a message is best communicated via head-to-toe pink (the shades needn't match, apparently) or paired with other provocative colours.
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