After years of unchallenged reign, leopard print seems to be giving way to a lighter motif: polka dots. On the catwalks for the spring-summer 2025 season, silhouettes are covered in small round dots with retro accents. Is this just a passing fad, or a long-lasting comeback for a long-underrated classic? Let's decipher a textile confrontation as stylish as it is symbolic.
Jacquemus bets on peas
Jacquemus' latest collection saw polka dots flourish on numerous silhouettes, relaunching a retro motif more than ever in the air of the times. Simon Porte Jacquemus celebrated polka dots from every angle at his spring-summer 2025 show, La Croisière. The show's palette was deliberately sober - white, black, sand, with a few touches of red - to highlight architectural cuts, while polka dots and stripes punctuated several looks in a spirit of timeless patterns. Erected as the brand's emblem, polka dots anchor the collection in a neo-retro aesthetic evocative of the post-war era. This season's Jacquemus woman seems to have stepped straight out of the fifties, with her oversized pea coats, curvy pants and pencil skirts worthy of Marilyn Monroe. "I was very much inspired by the optimism of the post-war 50s, when you didn't know whether a woman could be an ultra-chic Frenchwoman or a Hollywood star," confides the designer. The polka dot thus becomes a visual and narrative thread running through the show, symbolizing both joyful candor and vintage glamour.
Pattern duel: polka dots vs. leopard
The confrontation between these two iconic prints is by no means trivial, as each has a rich stylistic heritage. A wild motif par excellence, the leopard has crossed the decades by changing skin. A symbol of chic and elegance from the very first Dior fashion show in 1947 - favored at the time by Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II - it became the banner of rebellious fashion in the punk-rock years, with icons such as David Bowie and Madonna. Indomitable, the fawn print made its mark on fashion designers (Yves Saint Laurent made it a must-have as early as 1968) and pop culture in the 90s, worn by Fran Fine and Kate Moss alike. After a few years' lull, this predatory motif made a strong comeback last winter, featuring among the flagship trends for the Autumn-Winter 2023-2024 collections.
Opposite it, polka-dot prints play a happier but equally enduring role. Popularized during the Roaring Twenties on flowing, festive outfits, it reached its golden age in the Fifties, embodying a mischievous, refined femininity - the pin-up era of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn in fitted polka-dot dresses. Alternately psychedelic in the sixties, then XXL in the eighties, this pattern oscillates between nostalgia and fantasy, reinventing itself with each passing decade. Long relegated to the closet, polka dots are now making a triumphant comeback, seducing a new generation of designers and fashionistas alike. The fashion wheel has turned: while leopard has dominated our wardrobes in recent seasons, "it's a completely different pattern (and polka dot) that will establish its fashion reign in 2025: polka dot print".
All in all, there's every reason to believe that this playful, retro motif is the new king of luxury prints for 2025. But let's reassure die-hard leopard fans: classics never really die, they hibernate - ready to resurface at the next stylistic turning point.
