Sculpting the Leather

 

February 2025, the third day of New York Fashion Week. Khaite opens its Fall Winter 2025 show with a look that, as we would discover only a few weeks later, is part of a collective trend with leather at the center as the protagonist, but at that moment strikes for its power and simplicity: a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt worn with long elbow-length gloves and a corset, both in leather, both rigid as if sculpted from stone. A few days later, at London Fashion Week, the Greek designer Di Petsa sends down the runway a mini set consisting of a top and skirt: the brown leather looks wet and clings to the body forming drapes and folds. The mental association is immediate: the drapes of the veil of the Veiled Christ in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, one of the most beautiful sculptures of the Italian eighteenth century, famous for its creator’s ability to bring marble to life, both in its human traits and in its materiality. The same effect echoes in the debut show of the Italian Giuseppe Di Morabito in Milan the following week, again in the opening look, composed of an oversized black leather top and pants, with the leather forming large material drapes.

 

They are not the only examples: analyzing the winter runways, two things stand out. The first is that leather is literally in every collection. The data is clear: according to Tagwalk, the Fall Winter 25/26 shows registered a 50% increase in the use of leather or materials that simulate its texture and appearance, an impressive percentage that alone shows how this material has literally colonized entire collections becoming one of the cornerstones around which the season revolves. The second thing, closely connected to the first, is that many more designers are starting to use leather creatively, treating it as the fantastic material it is: malleable, versatile, and with great potential. The result is garments and accessories that look like works of art, where the leather is exalted and in turn exalts and enables structures, workmanship, and constructions.

 

It becomes the garment of a classical statue, as in the case of Khaite, Di Petsa, Giuseppe Di Morabito, whose collections emulate the effect of wet fabric, which puckers and clings to the body forming folds and drapes. The same is found, in a modern version, in Acne Studios, collection, which sends down the runway a blue dress with slightly puckered pocket edges and straps, like when you put a sweater in the washing machine and it felts and never returns to its original shape. Or it transforms into abstract art: «I am obsessed with creating clothes that seem impossible to exist. This time, I designed them adopting a cubist perspective», said Junya Watanabe about his winter collection, where leather jackets are almost polygons, squared and protruding. After all, the work of the designer has much in common with that of an artist, who transforms his vision into something physical thanks to colors, materials, and tools: it is no coincidence that Pieter Mulier was inspired precisely by a sculptor, the Dutch Mark Manders, to design the Alaïa Fall Winter 2025 collection, where every piece is a small masterpiece of craftsmanship and technique. And where leather has a central role: the long-sleeve top is composed of tiny pieces of rope covered in folded leather forming a thread, which was then hand-knitted creating a volumetric and, indeed, sculptural structure. As Azzedine Alaïa used to say: «When I realized I would never become an extraordinary sculptor, I decided to sculpt women’s bodies with my clothes». And today’s designers are doing the same, using leather as a premium material.