Slim Is In, Leggings Are Pants & Sexy Is Back
There is no single trouser trend to rule them all. Last year, for instance, while fashion designers proposed that we all go pantsless, giant JNCO jeans — yes, JNCO jeans! — were all the rage.
And, now, a handful of fashion designers have the gall to propose that slim-fit is back at the same moment that a handful more are serving elephantine slacks. The nerve!
But step back a bit and notice that the Fall/Winter 2025 fashion shows, where bottoms are snug and leggings are pants, affect an overarching inclination that's less trend and more attitude. It's not just that the slim fit is back. It's that there's an overt aura of just, y'know, feeling yourself.
Now, this is not the raw sex-appeal of yesteryear.
To these designers, subtext is the new sexy. Maybe not subtlety, perhaps, but that's never been fashion's specialty, anyways. Still, here as ever, the implication remains saucier than the reveal.
It's fitting that Tom Ford's Fall/Winter 2025 show would best relfect the season's mission statement. Most people likely mistake Ford's '90s-era Gucci golden years as raw sex appeal but that really only crystalized around the aughts. The magic of Ford's earlier work was in how it suggested sexiness, rather than rubbing it in your face.
So too did Haider Ackermann's debut collection for Ford's eponymous label. Ackermann's show notes asserted a desire to induce modern sensuality, which meant power dressing in place of naked provocation.
Peak-lapel blazers; sheathe-like tunic dresses that skim the torso and reveal a lots of leg; curvaceous tuxedo-like tops worn without shirts; viscous satins and silks that engender an air of intimate indulgence. All classically "sexy" codes, turned inwards to the wearer's whim and — look! — anchored by Ackermann's signature slim leather trousers
Although Courrèges' crisp angles and feather tops only revealed mostly safe-for-work whiffs of flesh, the effect was nevertheless charged. Here, the mere suggestion of the body beneath amplified its impact, even when it remained shielded by fabric.
Crucially, the bottoms were so tight that leggings became pants.
Same story at Ferragamo, Gucci, Luar, and Kim Jones' sublime final Dior Homme collection, which all toyed with this form of self-satisfied sex appeal.
Even with the most exposed outfits, like those proposed by Acne Studios and Ferragamo, there was agency at play. These were tight pants put to work at blocking out prying eyes without burying the body's form.
To Ackermann's point, this is indeed a modern notion of sexuality, one born of an era where upwards of half of young people shun "sexual content" in film and television. Reactionaries can call it prudish but, really, it's a desire to enact sexuality with purpose.
The wearer of tight pants and leggings has chosen that fit for a purpose, be it comfort or exhibitionism or anything in between. But it was their choice, even if it lays their gams bare, and thus reflects that motif of sexiness for the self.
And, yes, a slim-fitting pant is sometimes just a slim-fitting pant. At sacai and Prada, for instance, the hardly skin-tight trousers merely indicated unfettered ease. No complex propositions of the self here, just pants that're easy to style with just about anything.
That's why this is not merely a story of slim pants and leggings trending at fashion week. The presence of slim pants alone wouldn't be meaningful at all, really, not with loads of other designers still displaying full pants.
But the slim pants, tights, and leggings do reflect a broader vision of personal sensuality made manifest by discrete flashes of skin. Implication, suggestion, and just the faintest hint of reveal.
Sensuality expressed on one's own terms? Now that's a nice idea for a trend.
