Fashion Act: JW Anderson is Focusing on raw Materials, Bringing Mini-Dresses Back

Loyal to London Fashion Week, on Sunday morning Jonathan W. Anderson brought the international crowd to the British capital with yet another visionary collection for Spring-Summer 2025, showing with just four raw materials and no extra words where the industry should be heading next. Here is everything you need to know about Jonathan’s latest fashion act.

PLAYING WITH RAW MATERIALS

“Today, there needs to be a narrowing of things: while the world is transitioning, fashion needs to refocus its eye,” Jonathan W. Anderson explained backstage the main message behind his Spring-Summer 2025 collection, which was made exclusively out of four raw materials - cashmere, calf leather, silk and sequins, that were treated with different techniques on top to change the versatility of the fabrics. “We are in the moment, where the industry has to look at itself and say where it's going in the next decade. For me, it all goes down to raw material, which defines where quality is, and how we look at fashion” he continued. “The raw material in fashion is one of the most exciting things about what we do, it has endless ways how you can interpret it.” The result? A minimalist collection of extraordinary designs, playful, bold and charming.

BRINGING MINI BACK

The collection, presented at Old Billingsgate on the river Thames, was centred around an array of mini dresses: hand and machine-knitted, woven, inflated, deconstructed and reconstructed. There were laid-back options in colourful silks with trompe l’oeil buttons, fake pockets, zips and hoods and some over-the-top party and arty versions adorned with sequins. Two dresses featured a page from art critic Clive Bell’s study on art and design and whether they should sit together (Anderson said backstage that this is his vision of a blank page). But maybe the most mind blowing version of the timeless style was the graphic calf leather dresses with perfectly round disk-shaped skirts, a nod to ballet tutus.

So, why mini? “I wanted something quite girly,” the designer smiled backstage, saying that he is often inspired by his younger sister, her Northern Irish girlfriends and how they all get together and dress when they go out. “There is a toughness and kind of attitude of a JW Anderson girl. I wanted something which was a non-compromisable look, a very tight silhouette.”

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT BUSINESS

This year, London Fashion Week is celebrating its 40th anniversary, so it comes as no surprise that the journalists backstage were curious to find out what JW Anderson, who contrary to other British star designers, has always been loyal to the city where he started his career, will do next. Don’t worry, London will always have JW Anderson, he doesn’t want to show his womenswear anywhere else (even if he presents menswear during Milan FW, and his Loewe catwalks are the highlights of Paris FW). “London is very important to me, it was the first place that gave me a platform, and I am loyal to it. Some of the greatest talents come out of London. And if we don’t keep the wrongs, the rights and the experimentation, where is London's purpose at this stage? Life is not always about business.”

Text: Lidia Ageeva

Courtesy: JW Anderson