Neil Barrett’s Men’s Fall 2025 Is All About Tricks – From AI-Generated Models to Hand-Tailored Details
There is something both Kawaii and sinister in the lookbook images that Neil Barrett emailed late Friday night for his fall 2025 collection.
They required at least a few glances before one realized they were AI-generated, with avatar models strolling down a catwalk in front of a digitized audience that was flipped upside down.
More from WWD
Building a Wardrobe With Milan Men's Fall 2025 Presentations
The Top Three Accessories From Milan Men's Fall 2025 Presentations
The stunt’s purpose wasn’t immediately evident, but Barrett had provided a rationale for it during a showroom appointment earlier in the week at his sprawling, all-concrete Milanese headquarters.
“The world feels a bit upside down and impossible at the moment – so this time, presenting digitally, I decided | wanted to mirror that, and embrace the advances of Al in terms of how I can present the imagery, how I can invent it even. The clothes themselves, by contrast, are very much an expression of human thought and design, but the images have been digitally manipulated,” the designer, whose business turns 25 this year, said.
Creating a stark contrast with the manipulated images were clothes grounded in reality and in Barrett’s penchant for re-engineering menswear tropes that one can build the perfect understated, streamlined and neat wardrobe around.
These were all familiar garments – not just for Barrett fans but for the whole tribe of modernists and minimalists – with the right dose of twisting and sartorial tricks to make them look fresh and almost entirely new.
Take as an example the blazers with one lapel twist-cut so that it remained permanently popped-up, the range of mock-neck knits with a built-in collar or the new trouser silhouette, cropped at the ankle, baggy and tailored with no outseams, which created a fold that enhanced the sense of ease and nonchalance, in addition to making space for an extra side pocket.
The handsome double-breasted overcoats came with double lapels, an instant attitude-booster when one puts their hand in the pocket; tailored pants worn with second-skin knits looked as if they were turned inside out at the waistline, revealing a cummerbund done in lining fabrics; the signature taut gray short-sleeved knits had an incorporated white T-shirt so just the right amount peeked out from the collar and hem.
Those, and plenty more, little details – subtle but directional – provided at least one good reason for men to add something new to their wardrobes.
Launch Gallery: Neil Barrett Men's Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Best of WWD
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
