When Harris Reed was growing up in Arizona, he could sometimes be found dancing with his mom, in her dresses, with a giant pink boa draped around his neck. In his own words, he felt invincible, even when homophobic slurs had been hurled at him on the playground earlier in the day. Carrying this to his life at university in London, fashion often became the ultimate middle finger to his bullies. “I love to challenge and push people,” says Reed, now creative director of Nina Ricci and his namesake brand. “Running around in platform boots on the bus or big open blouses and gold lamé trousers—seeing people provoked—it really helps them question why they’re so upset. The more people see men, women, transgender individuals, and nonbinary individuals pushing the envelope with their fashion, the more it creates a conversation.”
For many, Reed included, fashion has always been a place to upend gender norms. This season, at shows like Tanner Fletcher, Jil Sander, Palomo Spain, Willy Chavarria, and DSquared2, that spirit stomped down the runway with a fluid force. For fall 2025, Prada mixed feminine bows with boxy shapes, juxtaposing traditional femininity with masculine silhouettes. However, other heavy hitters returned to form, embracing a stricter, more rigid binary. It remains to be seen if this is a reaction to the rollback of LGBTQ rights in the United States under the second Trump administration. But one thing is certain: Fashion and gender politics have never been more intertwined.
Jil Sander fall 2025.
Even amid their worries about the state of the world, many creatives remain committed to genderless design—both as a profitable pursuit and a moral imperative. For Tanner Fletcher, it stands as a brand cornerstone. “It’s kind of like selling men’s shampoo versus women’s shampoo. They are the same thing, with the same ingredients and the same price, yet we find a way to create barriers around who should purchase a product and who shouldn’t,” says co-designer Tanner Richie. “I think it’s important for designers to cross gendered barriers, because they are just that, a barrier.” Christian Siriano, who has recently expanded into menswear, has also found profitability in throwing gender out the door. “We’ve been selling a lot of the clothes from the runway that we just showed on men to women. Some of these [women’s] suits and kind of full looks that we did, we’re seeing men purchase as well,” he says. “We wanted to see if people would actually buy an iridescent red cropped jacket and really fitted pants, and they did.”
Palomo Spain spring 2025.
Designer Willy Chavarria, whose first show in Paris became the talk of the town, embraces a gendered blur—and a social justice mission. He says he is embarking on a three-pronged plan to center underrepresented communities in his work: “joining forces with other creative partners to have more impactful messaging, being vigilant in my own expression, and turning up the volume in everything I do.” Reed is aligned with Chavarria, saying it’s time to be “bold and daring and not get scared, because I think a lot of people are scared to be themselves.”
So as many brands assume a defensive crouch and cling to rigid binaries, others plan to push against them harder than ever before, ensuring people have the opportunity to express themselves through clothing. “In the end, it’s about giving people the freedom to define themselves however they see fit, without being confined to societal expectations,” say Dean and Dan Caten of DSquared2. “The runway is an incredible platform to challenge those conventions and spark conversation. It’s a bold step toward a future where fashion is truly for everyone.”
A version of this story appears in the Summer 2025 issue of ELLE.
