LaQuan Smith Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection

Many designers have a trench coat in their oeuvre. Whether it’s a standard khaki version we’ve seen a million a times, or a more inventive, stylized take, the piece is often designed with everyday practicality in mind: It’s a good piece to have when it’s chilly, rainy, or both; a sophisticated alternative to a yellow, rubber raincoat. But LaQuan Smith had a more specific use in mind when adding a trench to his spring 2025 collection. “My theory of a transparent trench coat always goes to the woman that, [on] a rainy night, is going to her man’s house to have makeup sex—or something like that,” Smith said in his Long Island City office and atelier, the day before his show. Adding to that inspiration is an equally provocative fabric: “This is a new technique that my Italian mills have been working on. It’s a transparent horse.”

This all tracks for the Queens-born designer, as “the ultimate LaQuan Smith woman is all about glamour and sensuality, and things that are quite provocative and modern,” he said. For years, this woman has mostly sought out Smith’s three top sellers: bodysuits, catsuits, and dresses—many of the sheer, cut-out, skin-tight variety. But as he did last season, Smith built on that foundation here, in an effort to dress that woman 24/7, not just when she’s en route to a party (or a late-night liaison with her lover).

“What does a LaQuan Smith woman look like during the day?” the designer asked rhetorically. She’s wearing khaki, safari-inspired separates—like a jacket with front pockets featuring an open, lace-up back, or low-slung, wide-leg trousers paired with a bodysuit. “I’ve been obsessed with this argyle cutout concept,” Smith said of fashioning this season’s bodysuits, which come in brown and white lace. During our walkthrough, when a model emerged in a strapless, bleached denim gown with a very high slit, Smith noted, “This is my girl in the Hamptons. She’s hosting for the weekend.” She probably owns the collection’s mini denim dress, too, padded at the hips to give what Smith describes as “a BBL effect.” (The latter is a very cute dress, but the fit needs to be slightly adjusted, as it was seen on the runway with a horizontal pucker.)