Good News if You Want to Look ‘Demure’

Oversize bows where six months ago there was cleavage. Flouncy, lacy, columnar dresses instead of skintight styles. More knee-length shorts, fewer micro mini skirts.

After viewing about 3,000 photos from more than 100 runway shows held during fashion month, a sense of delicate restraint was a discernible thread connecting various looks. Many designers in their spring 2025 collections offered ladylike alternatives to the flashy, logo-heavy and revealing clothing that filled stores and closets in the wake of pandemic lockdowns, as people were retiring sweats for attire that channeled a new liberation from their couches.

Modesty was detectable in brands’ different takes on floppy bow blouses and nightgown dresses with Victorian flourishes like ruffled collars, as well as in footwear like low-heeled pumps with sensible box toes.

This was not the lone dominant trend on the runways, which also featured an abundance of bubble pants, flight suits and preppy-style blazers. But it was the only theme that could be tied to a word that has lately gripped popular culture: demure.

The term, after being thrust into everyday lexicons through a viral TikTok video from August, came to be seen as an aesthetic counterpoint to the disheveled chaos of this year’s “brat” summer, which was sort of a continuation of the sleazy chaos that defined the look of the “hot vax summer” of 2021.

Describing the “demure” look, the Styles reporter Callie Holtermann put it this way: “It’s tucking your hair behind your ear. It’s a Peter Pan collar. It’s nibbling on some raspberries!”