Last year, Vogue’s Julia Hobbs introduced us to the Bubble Girl aesthetic: those who have reclaimed the Noughties party wear staple for daylight hours, wearing the cloud-like mini with Adidas Jisho yoga flats and a well-worn Balenciaga City bag to Barrecore and breakfast meetings. What can we say? We like to construct a story around clothes. Well, the adventures of the Bubble Girl are set to continue for summer 2025 – and this season, it’s all about cartoonish, parachute proportions.
Those who know their ’90s rom-coms, will no doubt be able to instantly recall the metallic pink bubble-hem prom dress that Drew Barrymore’s character Josie wore in Never Been Kissed – the costume designers chose this ’80s silhouette as the ultimate symbol of toe-curling, teenage dorkiness. However, steering clear of high-shine fabrics and balloon sleeves, designers have managed to modernise bubble hems, creating dresses that are freed from the connotations of prom heartbreak.
The Bubble Girl aesthetic is no longer just for Tabi-wearing It-Girls who want to wear something a little ironic – this dress silhouette is now a prominent feature on the Cos homepage, a signal of how bubble hems possess mainstream appeal for summer 2025. Carven and Ferragamo are two designers who presented a more refined take on the bubble dress in their spring/summer 2025 collections, thanks to longer hem-lengths and a muted, elegant colour palette.
However, for those looking for a personality dress, there were plenty of more avant-garde takes, too. At Alaïa, the proportions were so exaggerated that skirts looked like they were crafted out of literal down duvets, while Chloé had a bohemian take with flouncy butter yellow and mint dresses with tiered sleeves that were even more voluminous than the gathered hemlines. Trust Jonathan Anderson to craft the ultimate Bubble Girl dress, though, with a balletic ivory satin mini that shows just how far this dress has come.
.jpg)
The bubble movement has been gaining momentum since Louis Vuitton’s 2020 collection featured the neglected ’80s skirt silhouette, while the likes of Jacquemus, Miu Miu, Simone Rocha and Proenza Schouler have all dabbled with cloud-like constructions. Nicklas Skovgaard is also one of the key drivers behind this Bubble Girl aesthetic, as the buzzy designer has become rather fixated by this ’80s silhouette, with it reappearing in many of his Copenhagen shows. “There were quite a variety this time around, some of which sang (see the pouf ballooning out from under a long-lined sequined ‘tunic’ or the look with the waist of the full skirt rising to the Empire line), though a few others looked lumpy and awkward,” Vogue’s Laird Borrelli-Persson explained in the show review how he drove this forward for spring/summer 2025, with skirts intentionally crafted to look a little “off”.
For those ready to bubble up, you’ll find this silhouette is now featuring heavily in new-in sections, across all price brackets. On the high street, Cos, Reformation and Free People, in particular, are calling for a Bubble Girl summer.
