Sarah Burton's first Givenchy look and Giorgio Armani's last are Fashion Museum Bath's Dress of the Year 2025, picked by the Guardian's Jess Cartner-Morley.

An acid-yellow Givenchy dress and a navy Giorgio Armani suit are Fashion Museum Bath’s Dress of the Year 2025. The council, which owns the collection, announced the choice on Thursday (council release, 8 October).

The selector this year is Jess Cartner-Morley, Associate Editor for Fashion at The Guardian. She picked one look from the start of a designer’s new chapter and one from the end of another’s career.

The two looks

From the museum’s Dress of the Year 2025 page and the council’s release:

  • Womenswear: Sarah Burton for Givenchy, Autumn/Winter 2025. Look 11 from her debut collection for the house, shown in Paris in March 2025. It is an acid-yellow knitted mesh dress worn over a bra and high-waisted briefs, with crystal earrings and black patent leather boots.
  • Menswear: Giorgio Armani, Spring/Summer 2026. Look 6, first shown in Milan in June 2025. It is a soft navy jacket, waistcoat and trousers, worn with a rope belt and suede sandals.

The Armani collection was the last the designer personally oversaw. He died in September 2025, in the 50th year of the label he founded in 1975. The look went back on the catwalk weeks later, at the womenswear show in Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera.

Both pieces were given to the museum by the fashion houses. They are catalogued as BATMC 2026.13 and 2026.14.

Why she chose them

Cartner-Morley said Burton’s dress “speaks to” an obsession with the body that runs through modern life, from cosmetic surgery to sport. “Sarah Burton is an extraordinary talent and has given so much to British fashion, and I want to celebrate her,” she said.

On Armani, she said his death was “a defining moment for fashion”. The chosen look “has an understated but powerful presence that captures the Armani spirit”.

Elisabeth Murray, the museum’s senior curator, said the two looks record “the highly anticipated debut collection of Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and the close of an era at Armani”.

Both designers have been chosen before

The museum’s full Dress of the Year list shows this is a return for both names:

Year Designer Selector
2011 Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen Hamish Bowles, Vogue (USA)
2021 Giorgio Armani Ibrahim Kamara and Gareth Wrighton, Dazed
2025 Sarah Burton for Givenchy Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian
2025 Giorgio Armani Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian

Burton’s first pick came 14 years ago, when she led Alexander McQueen. The recent run of selectors runs from Kenya Hunt of ELLE UK (2022) and Caroline Rush of the British Fashion Council (2023) to Tim Blanks of The Business of Fashion (2024).

The scheme was started in 1963 by the museum’s founder, Doris Langley Moore. The museum says 551 pieces by 202 designers have entered the collection through it since then.

What it means for you

You cannot see the two looks in Bath yet. The museum has had no public galleries since it left the Assembly Rooms in 2022.

  • Online now: the museum’s Dress of the Year 2025 page has photographs of both looks and of Burton’s annotated design drawing.
  • In 2030: the museum’s plans page says it will reopen in the Old Post Office on Northgate Street in 2030. Building work on site is due to start in 2027, and planning permission has been approved.
  • Elsewhere now: some of the collection is on loan. The museum’s loans list includes Schiaparelli evening wear at the V&A in London until 15 November 2026, and a Mary Quant coat and hat and an Alexander McQueen dress at V&A Dundee until 17 January 2027.

The new museum is led by the council, with money from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the West of England Combined Authority and the Clore Duffield Foundation, the release says.

For more to do in the city in the meantime, see things to do in Bath and what’s on in Bath this month.