2025 Spring Style Guide
By Caroline Downey
Build Me Up Buttercup
An unofficial rule of cooking is that if it’s delicious, it likely contains butter. It’s edible gold from God. For fashion, there’s linen, satin, cotton, and of course cashmere to carry you from spring to summer in this most dreamy and inviting color. While incorporating butter into my wardrobe, I’ll be snacking on sourdough toast with generous heapings of salted Kerrygold. Three cheers for dressing like farm-fresh foods, and the taboo on dairy being gone.
Drapes
The lookbooks are predicting garments that cascade from the shoulders to the floor. They’re calling it the drape dress. It’s composed of billowing fabric on the upper body and strategically placed crinkles and wrinkles made into a fashion statement. And it’s so elegant. Stella McCartney, Alaïa, Acne Studios, Helsa, and Christopher Esber have mastered it. A drop waist adds an even more ethereal look. It’s a magnetizing design fit for the muses from Hercules.
Spring Safari
It’s a jungle out here. We’re spotting king cobra and a plethora of other exotic prints. Zebra is on dresses, skirts, coats, bags, and shoes, still proving to be a daring, luxurious way to stand out among the crowd despite its biological purpose as camouflage in the animal kingdom. Pony hair heels are also having a moment as a unique accessory. And of course, there’s leopard, which remains chic though we’re experimenting with other species.
Sheer Luck
Sweet and a little sensual, sheer fabric highlights the female form while still leaving something to the imagination. It’s a style that screams “woman” and “luxury.” A personal favorite of mine is a sheer black button-down with a pussycat bow. Simkhai and Christopher Esber have nailed it this season. It’s saucy but quite divine. We’re here for it.
Fisherman Core
We are back to nautical dressing this spring, incorporating knots, braids, stripes, tassels, fishnet, and any other material you might see on the side of a boat or in a tackle box. This trend brings me back to my days of wearing Sperry Topsider, which I collected and which served me well in sailing school. Martha Stewart, the original domestic goddess, caught the aesthetic in this season’s interior design. WeWoreWhat is all over it, with a spring launch literally called “Baitshop.” It’s evoking Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. If you’ve always wanted to moonlight as a lighthouse keeper, now’s your time to shine. As for me, I’m fully on board – hook, line, and sinker.
Caroline Downey is the editor in chief of The Conservateur, a staff writer at National Review, and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. She can be found on Twitter @carolinedowney_.