8 Brands We Loved at the MAN/WOMAN Showroom: Men’s Paris Fashion Week AW25
Main image: Some of the oqLiq Team outside MAN/WOMAN Showroom
Words by Jude Jones, Photographs by Jameson Pepper
MAN/WOMAN comprises an international community of curated brands, showcasing across New York and Paris - connecting designers with buyers and specialised press since 2012. Within, you’ll find the project is focused on brandishing unique craftsmanship, dedication to innovation and individual identities which altogether create a patchwork of “unparalleled industry perspectives”. Read more to understand the fundamentals of some of our favourite brands we got some dedicated time with during this season’s Paris Fashion Week.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Juun.J, Camperlab, Ottolinger.
Launched in 2005, FDTML (pronounced “fundamental”) is a Tokyo-based brand centred on handcrafted indigo denim. By taking the fabric as its foundational (or perhaps fundamental) premise, FDTML finds a way to innovate and rethink the ubiquitous material, often through the assimilation of traditional Japanese artistry and textiles in their craft. For their most recent AW25 collection, this has meant appropriating ぼろ (“boro”) techniques, an Edo-period working-class tradition that involves mending shredded or frayed fabric with other pieces of torn cloth to give garments second life. FDMTL, however, takes this to experimental extremes, creating hyper-textural, jacquard boro fabrics saturated in impressionistic colours that melt into one another, placing a contemporary eye on a storied tradition.
You’ll like this brand if you like: All Saints, Bianca Saunders, Ziggy Chen.
Countrymade is a hyper-conceptual, hyper-narrative menswear brand based out of New Delhi, India. Founded by Sushant Abrol in 2019, his AW25 collection, titled “Residual”, tackles a strikingly personal theme for the designer: the death of his brother in a military plane crash. Taking a piece of metallic detritus from the disaster as the collection’s visual nucleus, Abrol has translated this personal loss and suffering into a visually striking and haunting line, featuring military-inspired patterning steeped in ashen browns and greys, buffeted against ceramic buttons shaped after the wreckage. “Residual” is much more than a concept. It is a radical act of brotherly love and mourning, a testament to endurance, memory, and human spring ascending from the ashes.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Vans, New Balance, Adidas.
Zèta is a cutting-edge footwear brand based out of France, their selling point being their ability to make footwear out of anything. Launched by Laure Babin after she figured out how to make highly durable dye from post-wine press grapes from the vineyards of her native Bordeaux, the brand has since experimented with footwear made out of olives, corn, and – via a collaboration with Nespresso – coffee grounds, exemplifying the brand’s expansive commitment both to innovation and to environmental sustainability. Design-wise, their sneakers are classic and functional, with thick, sturdy soles and a kaleidoscope of colours, available in both men’s and women’s sizes.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Vaquera, Anna Sui.
Muhlbauer is a Vienna-based hat specialist opened in 1903 and passed through the family for four generations. Despite these relatively antique origins however, Muhlbauer remains nothing less than cutting edge, deftly in tune with fashion’s churning cycles to ensure their storied classicism is infused with contemporary tastes and trends. Their clothing is cute and functional, crafted from robust wool or felt and in a variety of colours, meaning they would be equally at home accessorising a “old money” fanatic as they would a maximalism devotee.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Maison Margiela, Uggs, Acne Studios.
Like Muhlbauer, Rosa Mosa is a Vienna-based brand, selling hats, shoes, jumpers, outwear, and various accessories. Bringing a playfully surreal touch to Central and Eastern European artisanal crafts, just some of Rosa Mosa’s signature items include a cow-hair boots, furry shaman bags, and woollen knitwear crafts. Founded through a partnership between Simone Springer, a Salzburg-born designer from a family of shoemakers, and Yuji Mizobuchi, a Buddhist scholar born in Kyoto, rosa mosa is an unexpected fusion of traditional Austrian craftsmanship and Japanese avant-gardism.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Kansai Yamamoto, Damir Doma, Andersson Bell.
Brú Na Bóinne is an ancient Irish archeoastronomy sight. It is also an Osaka-based fashion powerhouse with over 20 years of industry experience and a burgeoning outreach into Western markets. The name was chosen by founders Masahiro Tsuji and Naoko Tokuda for its sense of mythical hope and whimsicality (according to local folklore, the site is inhabited by fairies), a theme that sustains into its most recent SS25 collection, “Love Letter”. Floral and vegetal motifs abound in careful, decadent embroidered details, while a stamp-inspired pattern polka-dots the line’s signature unisex shirt. A love letter to fashion indeed.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, Ludovic de Saint Sernin.
A Leather is another Osaka brand, however specialising in leather goods, ranging from the expected – a jacket, maybe some trousers – to the unexpected – a leather kimono, jog shorts, or maybe that in a bright purple suede. All produced using traditional Japanese techniques and craftsmanship, A Leather is both classical and ambitious, always finding new possibilities for their base material, which they have come to learn like the back of a proverbial, leather-gloved hand.
You’ll like this brand if you like: Agnes B, Lazzari, Zadig & Voltaire.
Cus was founded by Spanish political scientist Adriana Zalacain Viñuales when she realised that she wanted to take a more hands-on approach to sustainability and ecology. From a workshop-studio in Barcelona, she now produces with her team leisurely, contemporary clothing that is 100% polyester and petroleum free (a task she assures me is no easy feat!) and uses natural, non-toxic dyes inspired by the Spanish countryside. The looks are simple, flowy, and refined, with a delicate and contemporary touch.
