A few times a year, fashion enthusiasts and professionals sit to watch (or attend) runways, whether it’s for the core Fall-Winter and Spring-Summer seasons in February and September or Haute Couture, Men’s, or Resort Weeks throughout the year. We encourage every aspiring professional to not only watch but also analyze fashion shows, as it can be beneficial for various reasons:
For Career Purposes: If you are an aspiring fashion buyer, merchandiser, editor, or trend forecaster, analyzing fashion shows will be a critical part of your job to identify new trends or write a fashion show review.
Increasing your Critical Analysis of the Fashion Industry: Rather than being a mere spectator, we encourage you to be an observer. Analyzing fashion shows will help you to look at the industry evolvments with a critical perspective and train your analytical skills in the process.
So, if you want to make your Fashion Month experience different, for instance during this Fall-Winter 2025 season, we will explain in this article how to analyze a fashion show.
How to analyze a fashion show
1. Conduct a Pre-Show Analysis
The fashion show analysis doesn’t start on the day of the show but with prior research about the brand’s history and the creative director’s background. Knowing this helps to understand the present and the choices they make in designing new collections.
Refresh your knowledge of the brand and its history
It is impossible to know what the show is about without doing some preliminary research about the brand. Check out key dates and moments to understand the brand’s origins and evolution and identify launches and pieces to get a sense of the signature style. This is important because a collection is usually a mix of permanent staples and seasonal codes.
Check the Creative Director’s background:
While Creative Directors adapt to the brand’s ethos and style, they also bring their unique creative perspective and trademark elements. For example, when Alessandro Michele dropped his surprise debut Cruise collection for Valentino last year, everyone immediately recognized his maximalist touch that he used during his time at Gucci.
Checking a Creative Director’s background is especially important before/during their debut shows. As knowing their previous works helps drawing parallels in their design approach, such as a thing for innovation, sustainable materials, or the introduction of fresh pieces like a new handbag model.
2. Analyze the theme and the message behind the collection
Understanding the inspiration behind a collection helps connect the looks. Usually, Creative Directors will share their inspiration in the show notes, which are shared during the fashion show or on their social media. For example, for his latest Fall-Winter 2025 show, Alaia’s Pieter Mulier wanted to explore the idea of the circle, highlighting thefeeling of movement within the body and around it. “The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,” he said in his show notes. “Your body is yours.”
The theme and the message behind the collection are also hidden behind the silhouettes, colors, and the whole atmosphere felt at the show.
3. Analyze the looks
We are now getting into the raw, most interesting part: analyzing the looks. These are the main elements you should focus on when analyzing a collection:
- The first and last looks: They are never chosen randomly. The opening look sets the tone and gives an immediate idea of what to expect next. The last look wraps up the collection, often with a stronger piece or an influential model or celebrity that sparks conversation.
- Key pieces: Did the designer opt for more tailoring or feminine dresses?
- Silhouettes & cuts: Observe the shapes and proportions of the garments. Are they structured, fluid, oversized, or tailored?
- Color palette: Are there any prevailing colors and shades?
- Fabric & Textures: These choices also help enhance the theme of the collection.
- Patterns & Prints: Identify recurring motifs and prints.
- Innovations & Techniques: Look for innovative fabrics and construction techniques and technological integrations, such as 3-D printing and trompe l’oeil techniques. Observing these innovations helps keep up with industry advancements.
- Embellishments: Comment on special sewing techniques, like appliqué and jacquard.
- Shoes and accessories: New products are often introduced on the runway.
- Hair & Makeup: How do they reinforce the collection’s message?
Analyzing these elements in looks will help you spot new trends and have an idea of what pieces will land in stores 6 months from now. Runway looks are often exaggerated versions of what will trickle down into everyday fashion. So buyers and merchandisers analyze shows to interpret them for real-life wear and predict what will sell best. This can be an interesting exercise for you if you aspire to a career in buying or merchandising.
4. Offer a Critical and Analytical Comparison
Don’t stop at analyzing the looks and put things into perspective by conducting a critical and analytical comparison with previous collections of the brand and other shows of the season.
Compare the show with previous collections of the brand:
Put the looks you see into perspective by comparing them to past collections and former creative directors.
Look for common traits in other shows
Some seasons, it seems as though designers all draw their collections from the same inspiration pool. When a color, print, theme, or cut keeps popping up collection after collection, there’s a good chance it will turn into a trend.
5. Describe the Venue and the Set Design
In the past, collections were presented to buyers, editors, and the press for solely commercial purposes. But a few decades ago, brands started to turn their presentations into spectacles, picking the ideal venue and set design to drive more attention.
The location of the runway often bears a special meaning to the creative designer and/or helps to convey the mood of the collection better. For example, Anthony Vaccarello preferred to stage his Spring 2025 show at the house’s Left Bank headquarters at Rue de Bellechasse (instead of the usual Eiffel Tower), which is symbolic because that’s where he staged his debut show in 2016. Another example is John Galliano’s Artisanal 2024 show, which was set beneath Paris’s Pont Alexandre III during a full moon and couldn’t enhance better the ambiance of the city’s nocturnal, underground scene that inspired the theme of the show.
6. Consider the Atmosphere and the Mood of the Show
Finally, other elements you should look at while watching the show are lighting, music, choreography, and the whole vibe that the show conveys, as they enhance the overall experience. Brands that use advanced lighting and music effects and choreography that add energy to the show deserve an additional comment.
7. Draw a conclusion
In the end, what is the collection about? How would you describe it in a few concluding sentences? Note down your final thoughts.
As you can see, there are many aspects of fashion shows that deserve attention. You can share your fashion show analysis by writing a runway review or building a mood board with key trends spotted on the runway that you can later include in your portfolio as an aspiring writer, editor, buyer, or trend forecaster.
Want to step behind the scenes of the fashion industry, its fascinating history, and how it’s operating? Enroll here in our online course Inside The Fashion Industry.
Dream of landing a job in fashion even without experience? Sign up here for my free masterclass to start.
