Each season, we break down everything you need to know about the new collections in The Fashion Week Cheat Sheet. After speaking to the designers about their inspiration, their hero pieces, the faces on the catwalk and the names on the front row, we present your complete guide to spring/summer 2025.
Tory Burch looked to the essence of sport for inspiration this season – "power and grace, precision and freedom" – taking elements of traditional sporting garments, and giving them a modern, fashionable twist, all in the aim of making her customer feel strong and powerful.
"It's always about women for me," the designer said backstage after her spring/summer 2025 show."This is not about what I personally would wear. It's how I see women. It's not about a specific age or a specific woman. What I judge to be successful is when I can make women feel confident and powerful."
Below, discover all you need to know about Tory Burch's SS25 collection – and for more catwalk highlights from New York Fashion Week, head here.
Theme and inspiration
For the past few seasons, Burch has been heavily influenced by sportswear, and this was the case again for spring/summer 2025 as the designer presented leotards and vests, biking glasses, dancer's skirts and fabrics that were lightweight and stretchy.
"I grew up with three brothers and I've always been obsessed with sports, and we used to have a sportswear line, which we've folded into this," the designer said. "I realised that when I think about design, I am always thinking about movement and shape and form – so many of those things I think about when I am watching or doing sport, for me, those two things go hand in hand. It's about precision and power."
The starting point for the season was the word "synchronicity" – bringing together movement and form. "How do you play off the different feelings that you get from sport, whether it's from fencing or judo or swimming or tennis?"
Hero products
"There are some track pants that are inspired by judo and karate," Burch explains. "We wanted to do something traditional but not. I didn't want the material to be heavy but I wanted it to have weight in the way it looked – so we spent a lot of time in the fabrics, and looking at how you create something that is interesting but not cumbersome."
Also making a comeback for Burch was the ballet flat, a style named after her mother, Reva that was first introduced in 2006. "My mother was known for a ballet flat and she said we shelved her, so we took her off the shelf," Burch joked, adding that nearly every single shoe in the collection started with the construction of a ballet slipper. "One of them is a low mule, I think that's my favourite. I wanted it to be the essence of what it once was but interpreted for where we are today."
The setting
The show was held at the former Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg.
Who was there?
Elizabeth Olsen, Maude Apatow, Jodie Turner-Smith and Mindy Kaling sat front row, while Alexa Chung made her New York Fashion Week debut on the catwalk.
