Chris Nick has always known that sex isn’t about showing skin. It’s in the sharpness of a lapel, the precision of a shoulder line, the way fabric drapes just so—suggesting control, hinting at what lurks beneath. His Fall/Winter 2025 collection plays in that space where desire meets discipline, where seduction is both calculated and chaotic.
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Taking cues from the 2000 film American Psycho, itself an adaptation by the 1992 Bret Easton Elis novel, the designer leans into the late ‘80s and ‘90s, an era where power dressing meant a performance, a status symbol a few can enact upon. “I’ve always been a fan of that aesthetic,” he says.
The influence of Patrick Bateman, the film’s obsessive antihero played handsomely and chaotically by Christian Bale, is clear, but so is another, softer reference: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
“CBK has been and will always be one of my main influences,” he notes her signature minimalism, quiet luxury, and absolute control over her image. It’s a striking contrast—Bateman, the unhinged Wall Street shark, and Bessette-Kennedy, the epitome of ‘90s refinement—yet together, they define the tension at the heart of Chris Nick’s world.
Cold-Blooded Charm
Like someone admitting to a kink, Nick admits he has gone as Patrick Bateman in Halloween. “He’s perfect on the outside, a disaster underneath.” That contradiction—the mask of control, the undercurrent of chaos—bleeds into the collection. The tailoring is razor-sharp, the palette strict in its restraint, but there’s a tension to it, a knowing subversion.
Patrick Bateman is terrifying not because he’s messy, but because he isn’t. His world is impeccable, his suits are immaculate, his skin-care routine is almost religious—until the cracks begin to show.
That duality of perfection and decay runs through the collection, embodied in muse Max Collins; she wears the collection in the designer’s own measurements. She steps into that world of hyper-perfection, her gaze cold, her stance immaculate. “She’s absolute perfection on the outside,” he muses. “But you don’t know what’s underneath.”
That’s where the provocation lies. It’s not in skin or scandal—it’s in the quiet, unwavering confidence of someone who knows they don’t need to try. “Perfection is provocative,” he declares. “True sex appeal is all in the allure.”
Seduction as Precision
Nick finds ecstasy in contrast, in the friction between polish and play. It’s the difference between a perfectly constructed tuxedo and the same tuxedo jacket thrown over a white T-shirt and jeans. Both are desirable. Both, in their own way, are untouchable.
His FW25 designs walk that line. Desire, in the designer’s hands, is both an object and an attitude. The clothes demand a presence—a way of moving, a way of carrying oneself.
“It may seem like it can be worn day to day, but really it isn’t,” he says. “Gray is a hard color to pull off. Even the polished look of the collection—it requires a certain look and attitude. You can’t just put it on and go about your day.”
It’s a philosophy that echoes throughout his work: clothes as a kind of performance, meant for those who understand the role they play. “I find perfection so sexy,” he admits, “but I also find when something is completely done so easily sexy as well.”
The Vanity of It All
Every Chris Nick collection is autobiographical. “It’s always been organic in that sense,” he says. “It’s the life I live, it’s who I am.” Each chapter in his work is a fixation, an indulgence, a love letter to the aesthetics that have shaped him. This time, it’s the world of American Psycho, not in its violence, but in its eroticism—the way power can seduce, the way control can unravel.
Is it a vanity project? “Perhaps,” he shrugs. But if seduction is an art, then vanity is part of the performance.
To view more of Chris Nick’s collections, visit his official website.
Photos courtesy of CHRIS NICK
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