As Spring/Summer 2025 collections unfurl like a bloom on time-lapse, floral patterns continue their perennial reign – but forget meek bouquets. This season, designers dig deep into history’s flowerbeds, pulling up Victorian grandeur, Art Nouveau elegance, and Roaring Twenties cheekiness by the roots, remixing them with a 21st-century edge. The result? A decadent, time-traveling garden party on every runway.

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VICTORIAN ERA INSPIRATIONS

The Victorian period (1837–1901) is not just lingering like a dried rose in a book – it’s positively thriving in SS25 fashion. Loewe’s Spring 2025 collection revives Victorian silhouettes with hoop-skirted gowns blooming in blush, ivy green, and cornflower blue, detailed with painstakingly embroidered roses, peonies, and sprigs of baby's breath. It's Queen Victoria’s floral fervor, modernized for today's fashion-forward aristocrats.

Miu Miu whispers sweet botanical nothings with naturalistic embroideries resembling the delicate illustrations from antique floriculture textbooks, while Boden gives the trend a proper English spin with its crisply embroidered jackets.

Simone Rocha, ever the romantic, summons the spirit of Victorian "tussie-mussies" – those charmingly cryptic nosegays – crafting designs that seem to press carnations between sheer layers of organza. Given that brooches are having an accessories moment, don’t be surprised if you spot the Victorian “honeymoon” brooch making a comeback: a crescent moon draped in jewelled flowers to represent the "honey" in honeymoon. Because subtlety, in true Victorian style, is wildly overrated.

ART NOUVEAU INSPIRATIONS

Where Victorianism strived for meticulous realism, Art Nouveau let nature get high on absinthe. Circa 1890–1910, this movement celebrated the sinuous, the sensual, and the slightly surreal. Fast forward to SS25: French darling Sézane captures this free-spirited organicism with oversized floral earrings and hairpins in creamy apricot shades, their fine gold lines swirling like vines after a glass too many. Meanwhile, BA&SH channels the aesthetic with the Flora dress, awash in watercolour blossoms that look like they floated straight out of an Alphonse Mucha daydream.

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ART DECO FLORALS AND 20TH CENTURY REVIVALS

As the season hurtles forward, we crash stylishly into the 1920s, an era that coincides with the fashion depicted in flowers at Fleurs de Villes Downton Abbey shows. Art Deco’s siren call rings loud in SS25, with sleek, geometric floral motifs gleaming from flapper-inspired gowns. Erdem's runway was a Great Gatsby garden party, where wildflowers stitched onto flowing dresses paid homage to the renegade spirit of Marguerite Radclyffe Hall. Michael Kors Collection and Valentino, never ones to shy away from drama, deliver floral lace and rosette silhouettes that marry Art Deco’s sharp glamour with a modern appetite for drama.

Sula, a sustainable British label, gets in on the throwback action too, resurrecting 1930s abstract florals with exclusive "small flower" and "big flower" cotton voile prints for SS25. Their pieces sport dusty, sun-faded hues punctuated with shocking orange accents, offering that delicious sense of history worn lightly – like a vintage scarf found at the exact right flea market on the exact right day.

In Spring/Summer 2025, florals aren't just blooming; they’re narrating stories, resurrecting spirits, and reminding us that the past is never dead. It’s just waiting for its next runway show.