Dress of the Year 2025: fashion editor picks a “naked” Sarah Burton design for Givenchy

Each year the Fashion Museum Bath invites a fashion expert to select a Dress of the Year that captures the year just past. This time the choice fell to a fashion editor, who learned of the invitation in February through an email headed “TOP SECRET”. The tradition began in 1963 as an idea of museum founder Doris Langley Moore, intended to keep a static collection current. The chosen outfits become part of the permanent collection.

Why a “naked” dress

The editor says she did not want to compile a best-dressed list or reward the prettiest gown. Instead she sought clothing that would help future visitors understand the fashion and culture of 2025. In her view it was the year of the “naked” dress. She cites Margot Robbie's gown of strategically placed crystal strings, Julia Fox's transparent mesh outfit, and Zoë Kravitz's black Oscars dress with a heart-shaped cut-out.

She argues that such dresses are about the body rather than sex. With women's bodily autonomy again fiercely contested in the US, bodies are more political than ever. The trend, she says, contains both female empowerment and subordination to the male gaze at once.

Her selection comes from Sarah Burton's first collection for Givenchy: a yellow, sporty mesh dress with visible retro underpinnings. The editor has known Burton since the late 1990s, when she was Alexander McQueen's right hand, and describes her as a designer who celebrates women rather than objectifying them.

The menswear choice: Armani

For menswear there was no doubt. Giorgio Armani's death in September 2025 was the loss of a giant of fashion and culture. He created the smart-casual style of menswear, championed gender-fluid dressing and timeless, lasting clothes. The ensemble chosen, with soft shoulders and fluid fabrics, comes from the last collection he designed, shown in Milan a few weeks after his death.

The museum's future

The Bath museum closed its doors in 2022, and a new museum is due to open in the city's old post office in 2030. Until then the collection is kept in Wiltshire and can be viewed online.