Pleats Take Center Stage: Fall/Winter 2025 Runway Trends
According to the Fall/Winter 2025 Fashion Week presentations, pleats have become one of the most important trend focuses of the season. Designers are no longer treating them merely as decorative details, but elevating them to a core element in building an overall style, presenting diverse design directions.
• Tulle Pleats
• Core Characteristics: Lightweight and sheer fabric, creating a dreamy, ethereal, and hazy beauty with rich layering.
• Common Designs: Often used in dresses and similar garments, featuring large pleats extending from the neckline to the hem.
• Style and Styling: Sexy yet elegant, can be combined with elements such as weave and ruffles.
• Sculptural Pleats
• Core Characteristics: Imitates the three-dimensionality of sculpture, breaking the flatness of clothing, possessing a strong artistic and futuristic feel.
• Common Designs: Utilizes bias cuts, segmented tailoring, and new heat-fused materials, often combining fabrics of different textures (such as silk and leather).
• Style and Styling: Bold and avant-garde style, recommended to pair with simple accessories to avoid overshadowing the pleats.
• Natural Drape
• Core Characteristics: Formed naturally by the fabric's weight and body movement, resulting in flowing, relaxed lines and a sense of ease.
• Common Designs: Created by twisting and stretching at the neckline, waist, etc. Fabrics range from flowing silk to heavy wool.
• Style and Styling: Relaxed and authentic, often used to create a casual and sophisticated look.
• Accordion Pleats
• Core Characteristics: Fine, even, and regularly arranged pleats, possessing an inherent sense of rhythm and order.
• Common Designs: Widely used in dresses, tops, and even bags, a versatile and classic element.
• Style and Styling: Classic and elegant; a touch of pleats is more sophisticated than wearing them all over.
🔬 Technological Innovation and Market Dynamics
Beyond runway trends, the industry has also seen noteworthy advancements in technology, craftsmanship, and business models:
• Breakthrough in Craftsmanship Challenges: In its Fall/Winter 2025 collection, the domestic brand LESS successfully pleated 100% sheep wool, which is notoriously difficult to shape, creating pieces with 114 dynamic pleats, thus solving the industry-wide challenge of "difficult-to-shape pleated wool."
• Modernization of Traditional Clothing: In July 2025, actress Yang Mi wore a "pleated robe" designed with reference to Northern Dynasties artifacts, and her "everyday wear of Hanfu" style led to a surge in sales of the item. This reflects the potential of pleats in the modernization and commercialization of traditional clothing.
• Continued Exploration by Classic Brands: Issey Miyake, the master brand renowned for its pleats, continued to deepen its signature pleated aesthetics with "dance" inspiration in its Fall/Winter 2025/26 collection, introducing new pieces such as regular pleats and wool pleats, showcasing the brand's continuous innovation in classic craftsmanship.