“We don’t have a robot baby this time,” said Daniel Roseberry backstage after his Spring 2025 Haute Couture show. He didn’t need one. This season, the designer did away with the chunky gold jewelry, toe-embellished shoes, and on-the-nose, surrealist Schiaparelli motifs (save the occasional eyeball, like the one nestled into the handle of a tasseled, embroidered pochette) that have helped make his six-year tenure at the brand such a success. “I think fashion has changed. The world has changed a lot. And the things that felt right five years ago don’t feel right today,” Roseberry said. “The challenge for me was to make it still feel and look like Schiap, maintain the house signatures, and meet the moment without doing something that feels too easy.”

Roseberry rose to the challenge. Wishing to focus on “the work and the craft of what the ateliers can do,” he created an understated (for him) collection rendered entirely in neutrals and black. Instead of leaning on Elsa Schiaparelli’s penchant for surrealism, he looked to her favorite haute couture shapes, textures, materials and techniques, such as Schiap’s beloved 1930s monkey fur (he achieved a similar look with feathers, which were bathed in glycerin and then brushed in keratin); and her hyper-sculpted blazers. Roseberry studied the work of other haute couture masters, too—Azzedine Alaïa, Madame Grès, Charles Fredrick Worth, Paul Poiret, Yves Saint Laurent—considered their techniques, and then reinterpreted them in the most overblown (but still impeccable) fashions.

In fact, that’s why this collection, even for its lack of lips and fingers and noses, was still surreal. The immaculate shapes Roseberry created with his satiny, quietly hued fabrics were of another world. There was a structured black basque bodice that was somehow open in the front, and from it hung pale peach tulle that swayed and danced down the runway; another gown boasted an undulating peplum that evoked a jellyfish; and Kendall Jenner’s boned, embroidered, and draped gown recalled the most unbelievable baroque candlestick you’ve ever seen. There was an overblown-fringe stole paired with a crystal-embellished netted gown, embroidered mules, matador jackets, the list goes on, and yet, it was all elegantly cohesive.

Models sidestepped massive golden circles as they walked the runway. The theme this season was Icarus, the boy with wax wings who flew too close to the sun and perished due to his hubris. (A few people walked too close to the sun upon entering the show space, and the security guards looked as though they might perish from fear as they begged oblivious, selfie-snapping guests to step away from the gilded metal props.) Roseberry explained that he chose this theme not because his collection was a warning to those who might face Icarus’s same fate, but because he interprets the ancient cautionary tale through an optimistic lens. “It’s the promise of escape,” said Roseberry. “That’s what couture can offer. It’s 15 minutes of a suspended reality. Stanley Kubrick said something about Icarus. Something like, ‘Everyone thinks that the lesson of Icarus is not to fly too close to the sun. But actually, what if it was, just build better wings?’” Roseberry paused. “There’s no tragedy there.” Indeed, Roseberry sent us all to a better reality during his show this season. And it was pure bliss.