DI PETSA’s Spring/Summer 2025 show at London Fashion Week was set under the blazing sun of ancient Greece, where models walked in sweltering heat with sun burnt chests and hands covering their eyes. The designer’s wet-look gowns were as always cast in a leading role, representing DI PETSA’s ode to female sexuality, but this season also welcomed a new audience as it was the first time we’ve seen menswear on the DI PETSA runway.
DI PETSA is known for playing on mythical symbolism in her collections, with both SS24 and FW24 referencing the Goddess of Love Venus and her divine feminine power, so we were suspicious mythology would have a role at SS25 too. Speaking with the brand's founder, Greek designer Dimitra Petsa after the show, she shared that her inspiration for this collection was the Greek myth of the labyrinth.
Elaborating on her inspiration, Petsa explained: “Our body’s a labyrinth, our self is a labyrinth; we have to circumvent and find our way through [it]. The idea that I propose is [that] through self-pleasure we can actually find ourselves.” DI PETSA’s shows normally involve some kind of performance art, and this season the sensual movements of the models as they walked was suggestive of what she described as “finding yourself through self-pleasure.”
Whilst Dimitra Petsa is known for her odes to female sexuality, this collection veered into a new area that she first experimented in this June: menswear. DI PETSA’s Pre-SS25 collection, titled “WET BRIDES ACT 2 - EROS IN PAIN,” blended bridal, swimwear, and her first foray into menswear. This season, SS25 transformed DI PETSA’s wet-look style into low-rise trousers, hoodies, shirts, and briefs.
Subverting DI PETSA’s famously wet designs, a sense of heat prevailed throughout the collection, seen on womenswear and menswear looks, creating an atmosphere that felt scorchingly dry. Models were painted with fake sunburn marks in the shapes of suns on their chests, and even had tan lines sprayed onto their legs and arms.
With loose fabrics and skin exposed, DI PETSA’s SS25 collection, titled “MY BODY IS A LABYRINTH,” channelled the designer’s typical emphasis on sexuality, only with the temperature turned up this London Fashion Week . As this season's models explored the labyrinths of their own bodies, it just seemed to keep getting hotter.
Featured image via DI PETSA©
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