Marie Adam-Leenaerdt Fall 2025: Shades of Gray
Marie Adam-Leenaerdt wants to break down walls between object and fashion design. Fitting then that she held her show in a furniture gallery, with models walking among lamps and art pieces swaddled in felt and tape as if to be moved or stored.
Her collection was a study in structure, centered on the sloping shoulder shapes she has developed as her signature on coats and jackets. Her take on volume goes against the archetypical grain which resulted in skirts jutting out at the waist as if suspended on a hanger, necklines extended as curtains draped on a rod, and other slightly surrealist plays on shape.
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Yet for all the architecture, pieces were supple in soft felt and shades of gray. Dresses had back zips to change shape or play peek-a-boo, depending on one’s mood; coats closed with craftily hidden buttons, and knitwear featured changeable collars for a V-neck one day, a turtleneck the next, broadening their appeal. Adam-Leenaerdt crafts her pieces to be pliable.
The Brussels-based designer is obsessed with functionality — and frugality — on the path to a more sustainable fashion model. “When you buy an expensive piece, it’s important that the piece lives for many years, in many locations, for different people,” she said. “It should have multiple lives, so we produce less.”
Breaking up the mostly monochrome and subdued palette were pops of bright color, including a sunflower yellow dress and leopard print trench, while her oversize zippy totes complete the package.
Elsewhere she played with rounder shapes. Adam-Leenaerdt has long looked to tables as an inspiration — her debut collection was based on the cocktail kind — and interspersed her long-line cuts with rounded hoop dresses decked out in a bright floral tablecloth print that could have been pulled from any grandma’s closet. They weren’t real in the end; instead they were printed reproductions of her favorite Vinted finds living their next life.
Launch Gallery: Marie-Adam Leenaerdt Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear Collection
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