New York's Hottest Club is Theophilio Spring 2025

In the middle of New York Fashion Week, when exhaustion has started to set in, portable fans are running low on battery and attendees are quietly skipping non-urgent events, it’s hard to keep up the high energy that was automatically present in the first couple days of shows. It’s even harder when an evening event starts more than an hour late, but at the Theophilio Spring 2025 presentation, there was only excitement in the air.

Designer Edvin Thompson returned to the NYFW calendar this September after taking a three-season hiatus. All eyes were on him to see what magic he’d deliver for his grand return, and let’s just say, it was well worth the anticipated wait.

On Monday evening in the Georgia Room at the Freehand Hotel, Thompson proposed a celebratory-yet-sultry affair. Slinky thigh-high slit dresses, smiley-face bikinis and sequined mini dresses were among this season’s lineup, plus a creative use of vivid ’90s graffiti and leopard prints, as well as bold (“Brat”) green colorways. As he’s done in past seasons, Thompson took an autobiographical approach to his creative process.

“The starting point was my birth,” he told Fashionista backstage after the show. “When I say birth, I mean celebrating the self: Celebrating your adversaries, your challenges, your hurdles and your discomfort, because that’s growth.”

The designer has been candid about the challenges he’s faced over the past couple of years dealing with a rocky business landscape. When asked, “Why return to NYFW?” and what the payoff of it all is, he didn’t hesitate in gesturing around the room and stating, “This right here.”

“The energy in this room is everything,” he continued. “But for me, I’ve always said from the very beginning that representation is so important. I don’t take that for granted. Representation is the ethos of what I do, really. I just want to champion everybody that looks like us.”

See all the looks from Theophilio Spring 2025 below.