Trying to fit fashion into categories and seasons is not an easy task when the message behind it transcends time, like the latest iteration of Jerry Lorenzo’s Fear of God. “It’s a very sensitive subject, one that I don’t think is a theme,” said the American designer of the message he wanted to convey with A Civil Collection, his fall 2025 lineup. Although protests and the power of dressing as a form of self-preservation aren’t topics strictly belonging to the past, Lorenzo purposely looked back to the ’60s, reflecting on the elegance and resilience of African American people at the time, acting as a sounding board for the contemporary zeitgeist too.
Dresses, back then, had to be functional. As Lorenzo put it: “One could go to work all day and maybe end up at a protest later at night, and if they’re fighting just to be seen as humans, they don’t have the luxury not to present themselves with elegance.” Coming at that concept from the opposite direction, he also showed a more utilitarian wardrobe item, denim overalls, with blazers, overcoats, and ties that follow the lines he established in previous seasons.
Although peached pop tones make their appearance for the first time along with gray blues and earthy shades that are classid Fear of God, black is the color that stands out the most. “The black leather is really inspired by how chic the Black Panthers dressed, with their turtlenecks and high-notch lapels,” Lorenzo said. Graphics were also introduced, borrowing original fonts and quotes from protest posters and bringing them back to life on fleeces and tees. Protests at Fisk University specifically inspired the designer, who saw parallels with contemporary campus politics.
“Even though we’re saying elegance and effortlessness, sophistication and easiness over again, this time it is about what gives that message purpose, intention, and motivation,” concluded Lorenzo, walking through a dismantled church that, before becoming a Fear of God showroom, had been a place of cultural aggregation on the outskirts of Milan, still showing the lines of a children’s basketball court on its floor and old frescos on the walls. This is a collection that will nurture conversations around our past, present, and future.
