What can style — not just the enviable highs that a packed year of fashion shows, press circuits and unexpected memes has delivered, but the less virtuous, too — tell us about the state of the world? If 2025 was any indication, quite a bit.
From red carpets to The Joe Rogan Experience, a deluge of people, clothes and objects that serve as an everyday vehicle for informing our collective interpretation of “style” have made clear and obvious influences on the furthest reaches of culture; their presence in the realms of sport and celebrity is undeniable, but some of the most seminal instances of the year can be traced back to music, film, business, technology, even politics.
With that in mind, we’ve combed through the breadth of an incredibly packed year and identified 25 style moments that have defined 2025. Some are style-ish, in the most traditional sense, while other are notable for their influence in shaping a cultural conversation, and, in a few cases, real-world geopolitics. Find them below.
Kendrick Lamar
It takes a considerable amount of aura to pull off flared Celine jeans, especially when one has to do it in front of 130 million people, but Grammy-award winning rapper Kendrick Lamar was up to the challenge.
Coleman Domingo
Menswear icon and Oscar-nominated actor Colman Domingo was responsible for many of this year’s biggest looks, but this sweltering mid-June look also serves to highlight two of the largest trends of the year — bicep-baring tank tops and the Hollywood stars embracing the designer bag.
Justin Bieber
It’s hard to know what to make of Justin Bieber’s commitment to being papped in massively oversized, incredibly loud casualwear, beyond as a visual sounding board for his new Skylrk clothing label, but that has not stopped fans and detractors alike from talking about it.
Zohran Mamdani
Much of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s success has come from his figuring himself as a man of the people. His sartorial choices — affordable Suitsupply tailoring, a Millennial affinity for rings and championing of Astoria’s Steinway Thrift Shop — have helped reflect this everyman ethos.
Prada Spring/Summer 2026
It takes a very memorable (and very conic) hat to draw attention as the standout piece from Prada’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection.
Bad Bunny for Calvin Klein
It was only a matter of time before Bad Bunny was tapped for a thirsty Calvin Klein campaign — he is, after all, the world’s biggest music star.
Pedro Pascal
To quote InsideHook editor Logan Mahan, Pedro Pascal’s Cannes cutoff tee “set the vibe for the summer: arms.”
Pope Leo XIV
While ornate, papal vestments haven’t translated to a massive sartorial moment since the Papa Puffer incident, a certain logo-embroidered baseball cap on the newly elected, first American Pope, however, is a different story…
Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce
Not pictured: Travis Kelce’s bare thighs. In what was surely one of the seminal cultural touchpoints of 2025, the star Chiefs tight-end and pop sensation Taylor Swift announced their engagement on social media, which happened to inadvertently reveal that Kelce had popped the question in what appeared to be a pair of seven-inch inseam chino shorts.
Lorenzo Musetti
Sports is more enmeshed with fashion than ever before, a fact perhaps most stylishly portrayed by Italian tennis player Lorenzo Musetti’s $12,000, woven leather warm-up jacket from Bottega.
Mark Zuckerberg
A mirror to the marco-transformations of Silicon Valley, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s evolution from a clean-cut, timid tech exec to an MMA-loving, super speedy, boxy-shirt-wearing disciple of the bro chain was fully realized earlier this year when he appeared on the The Joe Rogan Experience.
“Protect The Dolls” T-Shirt
Trends have been notably transient this year, but one concrete example popped up in the “Protect the Dolls” graphic tee, designed by New York fashion designer Conner Ives in support of transgender women and spotted on stars like Pedro Pascal and Addison Rae.
The Louvre Detective
Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux is not actually connected to October’s high-profile French museum heist; this did nothing to stop the internet from labeling the dappered, fedora-wearing teen as the “Louvre Detective.”
A$AP Rocky
Rapper, actor, Ray-Ban Creative Director — A$AP Rocky’s multi-hyphenate claim continues to grow. His canon of top-tier menswear looks from brands like Chanel and Celine has expanded this year as well.
André 3000
Celebrating “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the Met Gala included a host of memorable looks, but none were larger (or seemingly heavier) than creative force Andre 3000’s Daniel Lee-designed outfit.
Volodymyr Zelensky
The ill-fated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky may seem like a lifetime ago, but the encounter took place just a few months ago, in February, just long enough to forget that the dust-up included a jab at Zelensky’s signature military garb.
Jeremy Strong
Jeremy Strong, most famous for his eldest boy role on HBO’s Succession, is notorious for his out-of-the-box take on monochromatic style, but no one could have anticiapted his velvety pink ensemble during this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.
One Battle After Another
Portraying clueless anarchist-cum-family man Bob Ferguson in Paul Thomas Anderson’s electric, Oscar-baity drama One Battle After Another, Leonardo DiCaprio donned perhaps the most memorable costume from film and television this year. (The proof is in the staggering amount of robe-sunglasses combos we saw during October’s Halloween festivities.)
Alexander Skarsgård
Fortune may favor the bold, but Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård has mostly favored leather for his NSFW wardrobe while on a press tour for the forthcoming dom-com Pillion.
Jane Birkin’s Original Hermès Bag
While this seemingly nondescript leather bag is perfectly stylish in its own right, its impact lies in its lineage as Jane Birkin’s original Hermés bag, and in the whopping $10.1 million dollars it fetched at a Sotheby’s auction in July.
Harry Styles
Harry Styles attempting to run the Berlin Marathon anonymously and instead creating one of the most sporty-chic looks of the year — not to mention knocking out a very respectable time — just goes to show that you really can’t hide charisma.
Sydney Sweeney for American Eagle
The newest culture war topic? Jeans. Rarely has an article of clothing caused as much hot-blooded debate as American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney-lead denim campaign, which featured language that’s been labeled as both a playful denim tag line and a thinly veiled appeal to eugenics supporters.
Labubus
From Naomi Osaka to Marc Jacobs, the fervent obsession around Pop Mart’s viral collectable toy attaché, and the unavoidable collision between Labubu and fashion retailers, has been a story to watch (with abject horror, for the less-than-amused).
Dior Spring/Summer 2026
Inevitably, the recent and much-covered game of designer musical chairs that played out over the past year lead to sky-high expectations for this year’s crop of runway shows, most of all from Dior, now helmed by prolific designer Jonathan Anderson. Perhaps unexpectedly, the consensus around the dreamy, prep-inspired Spring/Summer 2026 collection was predominantly one of achievement.
Timothée Chalamet
Style is measured in moments — for actor Timothée Chalamet, there have simply been too many to count this year. From a wacko, cosplay-forward press tour for the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown to a stint as the New York Knicks’ biggest fanatic to a buzzed, bust-down Chrome Hearts caricature of himself for the forthcoming Safdie-directed ping pong epic Marty Supreme, Chalamet has perpetually dominated the fashion news cycle with stunner after stunner, and stands out as the clear pinnacle of style in 2025.
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