Tonight at Paris’s Galerie de Géologie et de Minéralogie, Chappell Roan, who along with Doechii has been the belle of this Paris Fashion Week, posed in a black suit with supersize lapels. With her no-holds-barred on- and off-stage style, Roan just might be the perfect McQueen heroine, and she had plenty of future performance looks to choose from at the house’s fall 2025 show. As models with crimped, flyaway hair made their way down the runway to the strains of The Soft Boys, Roan and Maisie Williams looked on in appreciation.
This season, designer Seán McGirr leaned into dark romance, McQueen-style. That meant high-collared Crimson Peak gowns with exaggerated shoulders and wasp waists, lace overlays, corset belts, and bejeweled leather. While the show began in classic Goth fashion, with all-black looks (including a sheer lace gown on another PFW MVP, Alex Consani), things quickly moved in a more colorful direction. There were blood-red, magenta, and lavender gowns sporting layer-cake cascades of ruffles or huge feathered shoulders. And chunky, textured knits that recalled McGirr’s native Ireland, along with rock-star ruffled shirts and even Elizabethan ruffs, made cameo appearances.
The skull print, at this point, is synonymous with the house, and McGirr splashed it on a blouse and scarves. He had a way with accessories, from pointy Keith Richards boots to rings and earrings that dripped with silver cords, and egg-shaped bags. The crystal-embroidered masks were made in collaboration with Freddy Coomes and Matt Empringham, recent Central Saint Martins grads now in residence at the brand’s Sarabande Foundation. Black lace tights were embellished with 3-D flower cutouts; even Goths have their sweet side.
Véronique Hyland is ELLE’s Fashion Features Director and the author of the book Dress Code, which was selected as one of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year. Her writing has previously appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, W, New York magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and Condé Nast Traveler.
