Over the past couple of weeks, designers showed their Spring 2025 menswear collections in London, Florence, Milan and Paris. And while the focus has rightly been on the clothes, the hairstylists and makeup artists, working alongside designers to fulfil their visions, created noteworthy looks of their own.
From raked and moulded hair to metallic makeup, these are the trends that stood out to us — inspiration for your looks come the spring.
Heavy metal
There’s something about the contrast of metal against skin that is slightly disconcerting — and arrestingly beautiful. There’s a reason jewelry is such a key part of many people’s personal style. During the Spring 2025 shows, makeup artists asked the question, What if the metal sat even closer to the skin as if it were a part of you?
The answer is that it’s just as beautiful, and still disconcerting, at first glance.
In Paris on Saturday, the first model at Kiko Kostadinov emerged on the runway, and it looked as if his left cheek glowed in a pocket of sun, highlighted by a harsh light. In reality, his face had been painted with a delicate streak of metallic silver. While there were similar looks at other shows this season, this was arguably the most beautiful execution.
Both Undercover’s and Feng Chen Wang’s runway shows featured metallic makeup as highlights on the models’ faces and in their hair. At Undercover, models donned lace eye masks (some made of metallic thread) and crowns, which were reminiscent of the ones that adorn religious or ancient noble figures in portraits. At Feng Chen Wang, models had an icy finish to their hair.
A few days prior in Milan, some of Magliano’s models had taken to the runway with bits of metallic lipstick and metallic swipes across their lids — a hint of what was to come.
Unnatural? Maybe. Beautiful? Definitely.
Raked hair
For many people, their hair routine is an essential part of their day — some might even consider it meditative. Hairstylists certainly displayed variations on that theme for Spring 2025, creating a raked effect, with patterns that called to mind zen sand gardens.
In Milan, where Moschino made a long-awaited return to the menswear calendar, there were swirls of hair and cowlicks — perfectly rounded and curving and with a Fibonacci-esque beauty.
At the Lemaire show in Paris, things were a touch more simple (and less mathematical). Stylists combed through the wet-hair looks to create neat, even and visually satisfying rows.
At Feng Chen Wang, there was a bit of both: neatly combed and evenly spaced rows with dollops of curls sprinkled here and there.
Twists and turns
Not everything was nice and orderly, however. Pulling in the opposite direction were hairstyles that flowed against themselves, with parts going this way and that. It was, in other words, organized chaos.
Again at Moschino, some models’ hairdos were partly neat and partly chaotic: bangs artfully arranged against their forehead, with the rest unruly. Others had blowouts that went up, left and right. The hair on many of JordanLuca’s models wasn’t slightly pointed at all, but sculpted and shaped into punk-like spikes both big and small and pointing in all directions.
At Kiko Kostadinov in Paris, the hair was more artfully and delicately styled in different directions. What appeared to be a simple combover was actually a small section of slicked-back hair parted on either side. Other hairstyles were spiked unevenly and errantly, looking both structural and accidental and as if magnets were pulling the hair in different directions.
Ceramic-like glaze
In January, we highlighted sculptural hairstyles on the Fall 2024 runways. At the Spring 2025 shows, makeup artists and hairstylists doubled down on that, albeit more delicately, sometimes painting on what appeared to be a protective glaze.
Nowhere was this more obvious than at Kim Jones’s Dior show, a collaboration with South African ceramist Hylton Nel. Nel’s work informed much of the collection, from the iconography to the faux ceramic collars. Many of the models wore cloche hats, but for most of the others, their hair had a lustrous sheen. It looked like the clear glaze on the larger-than-life ceramic sculptures that sat on the runway.
At Feng Chen Wang, there was more ceramic inspiration. Makeup artist Naïma Bremer applied patches of makeup to the models’ faces to mimic the look of the crackles on Chinese ceramics.
Similarly, at MSGM in Milan, the models had what appeared to be a glaze on their hair, their faces and even their legs. In another season, the idea might have been for the models to look wet, drenched in sweat or emerging from a body of water. But in the context of the other looks this season, the effect read as artful and more about protection.
Everybody nose
Noses are often the source of much self-consciousness, but maybe it’s time we highlighted them instead.
The models for Martine Rose, showing in Milan rather than London, took to the runway with prominent prosthetic noses taped to their faces. Not only were the noses noticeable — the colours didn’t always match the models’ skin tones — but they were also shoddily attached with what looked like medical tape.
In Paris, Walter Van Beirendonck’s models had bright dabs of makeup on the tips of their noses, and some sported colourful cones, in a show that seemed inspired by the art of clowning.
Rick Owens’s outdoor show, on the south side of the Palais de Tokyo, showed only a handful of looks, but there were dozens of models, all sporting the same look or a version of it. It was a beautiful show (some whispered it might have been Owens’s best) despite the restraint. The seventh and 11th phalanxes of models both drew attention to their noses in different ways. In the first instance, makeup had been applied in a bold red line across the bridge of one model’s nose. In the latter set, the models wore balaclavas that were torn and shredded — in that classic Rick Owens way — with their noses poking through.