This week I was in the supermarket and, while milling around the Halloween section, I heard a small child excitedly proclaim: “Finally, it’s spooky season!” Obviously, the uncultured infant wasn’t in Paris this September, because if he was, he’d have known that spooky season started early this year. For evidence, look no further than the style on display outside the French capital’s SS25 shows, from vampiric leather looks, to black lips and bloody teeth. And no, we’re not (only) talking about the queue for Rick Owens.
As per usual, photographer and longtime Dazed contributor Yu Fujiwara went along to capture the season’s best looks, including clompy, Frankensteinian boots, avant-garde devil horn dresses, and twisted accessories that seemed lifted from the alien realm of (known fashion fave) HR Giger. Elsewhere, black-veiled and masked-up Parisians took to the streets, proving that the city’s incognito era isn’t quite over, joined by hunchbacks straight out of Notre Dame.
That’s not all, though. The horror references continued with the flash of a red, Suspiria-esque dress (yes, Luca Guadagnino’s remake still holds us in its demonic clutches) and old-timey, cultish details befitting the 2020s’ religious horror renaissance. Meanwhile, other fashion fans cosplayed as the kinds of sole survivors you’d see staggering about in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, their outfits torn to shreds. See also: a prevalence of detached limbs, from a severed pair of praying mannequin hands, to an embroidered witch’s claw, curling around a jacket’s seam.
No survey of spooky, scary street style would be complete without a mention of Michèle Lamy, of course, and the designer didn’t disappoint, treating Paris to an array of noir looks. Think: batlike hellspawn, accessorised with a backward cap and mirrored shades. In the end, it’s her horror show, and we’re all just living in it.
Scroll through the gallery above to see the most devilish looks at Paris Fashion Week SS25, and get some Halloween inspo while you’re at it.