H&M’s festival-ready. The global fashion brand has secured Tyla, FKA Twigs and Caroline Polachek as headline acts for its SS25 collection. With the first drop due to arrive on 20 March, the brand’s also lining up an LA festival, blending fashion and music, in April. 

H&M says the new collection’s “an ode to femininity: an intriguing exploration of moods, sensibilities and identities” so the “choice of a diverse collective of inspiring female icons” to promote the line enables H&M to assert its “strong fashion vision, and its leadership in championing exceptional design and collaboration across the music and fashion fields”.

The collection will be released in two chapters, which complement each other but offer their own unique perspective and attitude, noted H&M and together “they pay homage to the multi-faceted nature of contemporary femininity”. 

The first drop “conjures an air of ethereal Bohemia”, we’re told. It offers a fresh take on spring style, from festival dressing to city chic, “while paying homage to the icons of fashion history, with nods the sweeping blouses of iconic glam rock musicians and the fluidity and androgyny of New Romantic styling”.

H&M design director Eliana Masgalos said: “This season, we were inspired by different stages and moments of women’s lives and the richness of femininity. We wanted to offer exceptional pieces that bring energy and light. A sense of escape felt very relevant: we wanted to play with a beautiful bohemia, rock icons and festival freedom.”

She noted that heirloom-style pieces are updated with an urban and refined edge… 70s, 90s, and today all combine… The mood is carefree and yet sharply confident.” 

The collection is rich in classic rock ‘n’ roll staples, from voluminous sheer blouses through to lace-up shirting and tunics. Textural detailing includes ornate edging on collars and cuffs, intricately crocheted dresses, mini-skirts with braiding or stitch embellishments, and laser-cut pleated ruffle skirts, tiered for maximum movement.

Structured, tougher elements add balance – from a striking studded blazer to 70s multi-pocket jackets, rendered in leather.

Accessories come with a boho spirit with slouchy shoulder bags in a variety of scales and finishes, including with lace-up seams. These can be styled with snake-print slippers and waist-belts, and festival-ready biker boots.

Jewellery includes antique-style pendant necklaces, tassel earrings, chunky bangles and chokers, and rings and cuffs in both metal and resin-style materials. Pilot-style sunglasses complete the look.

And to promote a spring “filled with a sense of freedom, vitality, spirit and light”, it will be celebrated with that festival of fashion and music in Los Angeles early next month… an event that will “pay homage to the city, celebrating its dynamic relationship to cinema, sound and style”.

Value womenswear retailer Bonmarché is to open a store in High Wycombe, Bukinghamshire, on 20 March followed by a further promotional opening by its brand ambassador, TV personality Lorraine Kelly, on 28 March.

The 3,000 sq ft store in the market town’s Eden Centre marks Bonmarché’s first opening in the county and features a new store interior in which to display its full range of fashion and accessories.

Kelly’s appearance marks the second anniversary of her Bonmarché association when her ‘Lorraine Loves’ collection debuted featuring “figure-flattering styles and designs for all”.

Her popular line features alongside a new new denim collection that combine with wardrobe staples, lingerie, nightwear, everyday brand Dash, casual lifestyle brand Autonomy as well as a special selection of pieces for Mother’s Day gifting.

The openings will include special offers of limited free goody bags for the first 30 purchasers, free lucky dip prizes for the first 200 customers on both days, plus 10 ‘golden tickets’ worth £30 each hidden throughout the store on the opening day.

Brand retail director Amanda Waterfield said: This [opening] continues our investment into new stores on the high street, with now over 230 Bonmarché stores.”

In chronological order – starting in New York and ending in Paris – the 12 catwalk shows that had the most beautiful clothes; empowered the most women; packed the most punch; or took fashion into fresh aesthetic terrain.

Altuzarra

Wuthering Heights in the famed cathedral of finance the Woolworth Building. Brilliant double-face cashmere wrap coats, worn by heroines escaping a storm, like the famed novel’s protagonist Catherine Earnshaw.

Alpine cashmere sweaters; black riding boots; jodhpur-style pants; fabulous hooded great coats; and soft blousons, ideal for the north Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights, or for New York’s sub-zero temperature on the day of the show. America’s most polished fashion statement.
 

Luar

One of two great design communities in BIPOC fashion alongside Willy Chavarria, Raul Lopez wowed in a lower Manhattan lobby with a great gutsy, provocative lust for love display.

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It’s title was “El Pato”, taken from Hispanic homophobic slang for someone effeminate. Lopez cuts with a scalpel: diagonally slashed tunics; fantasy pencil thin pants suits in a muddy crocodile print; fantastical Martha Graham body stocking-meets-cape looks. Nearly every passage winning cheers from his ecstatic front row. All the way to a fabulous bouffant space commander denim jackets, like an after-hours Lieutenant Uhura in Bed Stuy. Fashion fighting for diversity and inclusion.

Paolo Carzana

A star is born moment for Paolo Garzana and his first proper runway show, presented in a tiny wee pub called The Holy Tavern to just 40 patrons. A delightful gang of beguilingly disheveled dandies and molls, all attired in bizarrely dyed fabrics, crumpled and creased and sewn into Restoration-pirate chic.

Beautifully bedraggled, the cast wore a collection that was tied, twisted, coiled and ruched – like extras from “The Raft of the Medusa”. The hottest new talent in the UK. And not a bad pint afterwards.
 

Marni

Francesco Risso may not be the most commercial designer in Milan, but he is the most crazily cool. A collaboration with Nigerian artists Olaolu Slawn and Soldier Boyfriend led to images of wolves, fox tails, dark birds and flying pigs.

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Paintings displayed on the show-space walls and printed onto many phantasmagorical outfits. Talk about composite cool fashion: Crombie coats that become cocoons, tube skirts that had plenty of kick, and shirt dresses morphed into gowns. All presented inside a surreal mock jazz club. Probably the single most original collection of the season.
 

Fendi

Silvia Fendi feted the century of the brand her grandparents founded with an often beguiling collection. Ironically this felt like the best possible examination paper for the job she already effectively carries out – creative director of the Roman house.

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Flawless flared funnel collar coats worn as dresses; marvelous tubular leather coats in chevron and zig zag mink coats that reeked rich. Eva Herzigova in an accordion pleat silk cocktail; Edie Campbell in a strass encrusted tweed cocoon coat. Talk about passing a test with flying colors.
 

The Row

Poise, poetry and calm at The Row, where half the guests had to sit on the carpeted floor, the better to enjoy the purity of the clothes: begun by super trench-coats – shortened with precise panels; all nipped at the neck with two visible buttons.

Everything classy yet never attention seeking – double-face cashmere coats with tuxedo lapels, lambskin great coats in burgundy or soft spy coats with big lapels in black leather. Exactly the sort of clothes that every lady editor and buyer wanted to wear.
 

Tom Ford

A sweet smell of a hit at Haider Ackermann’s launch collection for Tom Ford. Hyper-ironed leather looks with a soupçon of transgression. Impeccably cut – razor-sharp perfectos for gals; taut biker jackets for guys; redingotes for rockstars; surgeons’ coats for femme fatales.

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Zegna spent $150 million buying the 20-year license to Tom Ford’s fashion and accessories division, which was not ever noticeably profitable. But this looks like one big bet that is going to pay off handsomely.
 

Róisín Pierce

A moment of grace at Róisín Pierce, who staged three intimate shows in the gilded elegance of the Hotel de Breteuíl, otherwise known as the Irish Embassy in Paris.

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A delicate dreamlike meeting of cotton spirals, snowflake cotton, whisper-light embroidery and feathery tulle that confirmed Róisín as one of the most important young contemporary designers.
 

Givenchy 

Sarah Burton debuted with tremendous panache at Givenchy. Riffing on Hubert de Givenchy’s Bettina blouse; crisp tailoring; little black dresses for Audrey Hepburn; or fishnet tops that read “Givenchy Paris 1952”, the year the house was founded.

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A canny blend of silhouette, attitude and the best costume jewelry anywhere. A stylish home run for Burton, and Givenchy.
 

Issey Miyake

The season’s loudest applause went to Satoshi Kondo at Issey Miyake inside the Carrousel du Louvre. Marrying mannish blazers with beautifully inverted shirts, their sleeves falling before the waist.

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Heralding fabric innovations – like paper and polyurethane V-shaped blazers; or blends of alpaca and thermoplastic synthetic fibers to produce gargantuan rigid coats in fantasy folds and silhouettes. Blockbuster show, epic fashion. 
 

Louis Vuitton

Trans-Euro Vuitton, as Nicolas Ghesquière took just 400 guests to a mock rail station, beside a real one – the Gare du Nord. A fitting metaphor for the designer’s latest blend of futurism, active sport, techy materials and tongue in cheek humor.

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Talk about taking risks: leather shorts cut like lotus flower-shaped Kiki Bachi basins, paired with transparent latex dusters. Graphic anoraks with road signage Vuitton logos; or tartan blankets brilliantly draped into sexy after-hour saris. For evening, samurai armor-shaped knit tops over vast folds of mille feuille chiffon dresses. No wonder French First Lady Brigitte Macron gave him the warmest imaginable embrace when Nicolas took his bow.
 

Miu Miu

Unquestionably, the single most influential show in fashion today.

This season, Miuccia entitled the collection “Femininities”, and her exaggerated ideas – cone bras; triangular structures in felted wool; tailoring that sat off the body; ultra-see-through transparent silk all looked sensational. As did her hyper eclectic and sexually diverse cast. Vive la Resistance.