Updated 2/22 End of Images: Fashion industry hearts skipped a beat with Alaïa’s [IG] Spring 2025 campaign release of supermodel Daria Werbowy images, shot in Miami by Tyrone Lebon [AOC Archives].

Werbowy has lived a quiet, private and reclusive life after walking from the fashion spotlight in 2016, returning in 2023 for a Gucci jewelry campaign and occasionally for Phoebe Philo, who was creative director at Chloé, when Daria ruled the runway.

Alaïa at the Guggenheim

Alaïa’s Pieter Mulier showed his Spring 2025 collection in New York City at the Guggenheim museum. The Belgian-born designer arrived in New York City as Raf Simon’s number two at Calvin Klein in 2016. Never the site of a major fashion show, the vibe merger of the Guggenheim’s curvaceous architecture with Maison Alaïa’s modern-art adoration of womanly curves was an energy field in perfect synchronicity.

Only Daria’s lead photo above shows the Guggenheim-inspired curvaceous design of the chubbies.

Guggenheim Museum New York City Photo by Nicholas Ceglia on Unsplash

If one looks closely, the design influence of the Guggenheim pervades much of the Spring 2025 collection, with its ode to sleek, statuesque, desirable — but perhaps not easily-attainable — women. Overall, the collection paid homage to American sportswear and elegant ease.

“The link between America and Alaïa has always been so strong…Americans have been the first clients of Alaïa since the beginning,” Mulier said at showtime.

WWD shared more details:

Dawn Mello, then fashion director and president of Bergdorf Goodman, invited Alaïa to show a ready-to-wear collection at the store, after admiring the designer’s clothing on chic Paris women in Bill Cunningham’s style photographs published in WWD. Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso were among the attendees at the September 1982 show, which WWD photographed front and back, and by the end of the day, Alaïa had enough orders to expand the business.

In their own words, Maison Alaïa chooses words like ‘purity’ as a core concept behind the new Daria Werbowy campaign, writing:

“Daria Werbowy illuminates these images. She radiates an intense, raw and timeless sensuality. She is the Alaïa woman in all her freedom. More sublime than ever in her sheer simplicity.”

Daria Werbowy [AOC Archives]