By this time during fashion month, it’s easy to get glassy-eyed at the same-same coming down the runway. Then along comes Duran Lantink to shock the system and make you smile.
The Dutch designer’s fall 2025 “Duranimal” collection did that and more, flying the flag for creative freedom even as he nudged into more commercial territory.
Freedom how? Well, freedom to strap realistic looking size DD prosthetic boobs to a model without any regard for gender, for one, and have them jiggling down the runway for a made-for-social-media finale.
“It’s about cosplay, it’s playing with bad taste, it’s about form. Every season, we’re trying to sort of surprise ourselves with how can we change an original piece into something that we find interesting,” the designer said. “And we’re gonna do whatever the f—k we want because we’re free,” he said, as if it were a rallying cry. (Needless to say, it is a very different vibe in France than the U.S. right now.)
The show was set on an office floor, with headset-wearing cube dwellers shuffling papers and loudly stapling. Against that backdrop of conformity and ennui, Lantink unleashed his wild beasts with prosthetic washboard abs, padded lumps and bumps, and knitted tubes orbiting the hips, conjuring ideas about the power of clothing for body modification.
A full-on zebra stripe spandex outfit with matching boots and jock strap was a hoot; as zebra, cow, leopard, and snake patterns mingled with camo prints, cartoonish foam deerstalkers with flap hats — the hunted and the hunters chasing each other around the white carpeted floor.
Cosplay aside, what was so interesting was how Lantink was able to create sculptural volumes for the everyday that were unlike anything else out there. While last season’s collection explored floating tank tops, this one had floating jeans, trousers and kilts, wired up and three-dimensional, so they looked as if they were hanging in front of instead on the body.
Lantink’s bubble forms morphed into more sharp silhouettes, as on a fabulous pair of low-slung pinstripe trousers with pointed folds jutting from the hips and a molded sleeveless top with the same creating the illusion of perfectly lifted, conical breasts. (Lantink is rumored to be the next guest designer at Jean Paul Gaultier, and you could definitely see where he could go from here.)
Bomber jackets were inflated but fit and flattered the waist over a trouser skirt, fisherman sweaters had cartoon-cute mounded shoulders, and a gorgeous trenchcoat with interior wired cage sleeves and protruding hips lead the model instead of the other way around. All that — plus more conventionally engineered duffle coats, cargo pants, and branded varsity jackets — created a real commercial path forward for the designer, who is already a celebrity darling. It was a great show.
