A A multi-tiered flounce dress with bishop sleeves from Alessandro Michele’s debut collection for Valentino 2025 (Image credit: Vogue.com)
Fashion Month 2024/2025 ended in Paris with some of the prettiest, yet sexiest, fashion to ever hit the runway. From the frilly and flouncy looks of Alessandro Michele’s debut collection for Valentino, to the leather & lingerie looks from Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski at Hermès and Patric DiCaprio & Bryn Taubensee at Vaguera.
Fashion Inspiration
For designers, fashion weeks are always a time for inspiration. Whether we are hit with a new trend, or a new design detail, chances are that University of Fashion’s vast catalog of how-to videos can teach you how it’s done.
This blog post is the last in our fashion month series entitled, “How Did They Make That?” We will be covering a few of Paris fashion week’s trends and design details and then pointing you to the appropriate lesson on the UoF website.
Cascade Ruffles & Flounces
From Valentino’s S/S 2025 collection: Cascade ruffled flounced skirt and dress. Layered flounced skirt paired with an embellished jacket & frog and loop front closure. (Image credit: Vogue.com)
Pretty is Back!
In Alessandro Michele’s show notes, he said, “Frivolousness is not useless,” and this concept was completely evident in his beautifully designed collection for Valentino. He served up interesting uses for cascade ruffles by cleverly sandwiching them into vertical seams on skirts and dresses. They were positively gorgeous (see above).
Michele also designed several pencil skirts with contrasting multi-tiered flounce layers and then paired them with over-the-top embellished jackets with frog passementerie closures.
To learn how to draft and drape cascade ruffles see the link to our lesson below. Then use your creativity to insert the ruffles into your own designs.
If multi-tiered flounce layers is your thing, then let us teach you the concept. For example, how to plan your tiers and utilize the slash & spread method to add fullness based on the correct shirring ratio for a particular fabric. It’ll then be up to you and your imagination to do the rest! (See Valentino’s triple flounce skirt and dress above).
University of Fashion Lessons
UoF’s Draping a Cascade Ruffle Skirt lesson & Draping & Drafting a Multi-tiered Dress lesson
Handmade Frog Closures
Valentino’s embellished jacket with frog closure – UoF’s lesson Handmade Frog & Ball Button
Lingerie & Leather
Sheers, leathers & lingerie looks at Hermès, Balenciaga & Vaguera (Image credit: vogue.com)
Although she’s had an impressive career at Maison Martin Margiela, Celine, the Row, and as Creative Director at Hermès since 2014, Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski seems to float under the radar. She is in a class of designers who generally believe that attention is tacky and that their work should speak for itself. Vanhée-Cybulski can easily accomplish this because she is a part of a 187-year-old French maison, known for incredible leather craftsmanship. In fact, the theme of her S/S 2025 Hermès collection was “Inside the Workshop,”featuring bras and panties paired with sheers and leathers as a tribute to dressing the truly liberated woman.
Speaking of women’s lib, Demna Gvasalia, Creative Director at Balenciaga, opened his show with lingerie in what is being called the “no-clothes season.” Gvasalia mixed it all up though, by layering and embroidering his bras and teddies.
Looking to learn how to make a bra and panty and how to work with leather? Check out these UoF lessons.
University of Fashion Lessons 
UoF lesson: Drafting a Panty
UoF lesson: Draping a Bra
Intro to Leather & Leather Sorting, Cutting & Construction Techniques
UoF’s lesson Leather: Tanning to Types
There is much to learn when working with leather (and faux leather) and it all begins with our lesson entitled, Leather: Tanning to Types. This lesson teaches the types of animals that are tanned, how they are tanned and how leather skins are measured and sold.
Due to the fact that leather skins vary in shape and size, certain design decisions must be made in the pattern making process. For example, where to plan the ‘cut-lines’. In our lesson, Leather Sorting & Cutting, we cover how to sort the skins by shade prior to cutting the pattern pieces and then how to strategically place and cut each pattern piece on a skin. Our lesson, Leather: Interfacings & Stabilizing Skins, teaches about the appropriate types of interfacing and how to stabilize your leather seams to keep them from stretching, the way it is done in the sample room of the largest leather manufacturer in the fashion industry, GIII Apparel Group.
Our 4-part leather construction lessons will guide you through the process of how to sew a complete women’s leather jacket.
University of Fashion Lessons
University of Fashion leather series
Which Paris Fashion Week trend has inspired you?
