Addressed: How to Style a Bubble Skirt?

Introducing Addressed, a weekly column where we’ll, ahem, address the joys (and tribulations!) of getting dressed. We’ll look at runway and real-life trends, talk to people whose style we love, and, most importantly, answer your fashion queries. Download the Vogue app and find our Style Chat section to submit your question.

There’s a new silhouette in town—and it’s a bubble. The poufy, exuberant, hyperfeminine shape made an early appearance in the 1950s, but it’s likely best remembered from the absolute hold it had on fashion in the 1980s. “It’s Lacroix, sweetie,” as Eddie used to say on Absolutely Fabulous. It’s made its way to us in 2025 via designers like Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, and Duran Lantink, whose penchant for inflated shapes just landed him the new creative-director position at Jean Paul Gaultier.

This year’s bubbles are minimal, extravagant, ultrafemme, and even sporty. Finding a piece that fits your style will probably be super easy. There’s a chance you’ve already made a purchase or two, but maybe you’ve been struggling with figuring out how to wear them. It’s a fact that the bulbous shapes look great on the very tall and thin runway models, but it can take a bit of finagling to figure out how to pull them off on an average human body. Luckily, playing around with clothes is the best part of getting dressed.

The first step is coming to terms with the fact that you’re wearing a garment with an extremely rounded shape. If you are concerned that it’ll make you look too this or too that, then you may want to skip the trend—and that’s fine! Not everything is for everyone! Once you have accepted that your body will be a bubble, the next step will be figuring out your proportions. As you can see from the many images I’ve pulled from the 2025 collections, an abbreviated length—whether on a dress, skirt, or tunic—works best. Think of it as creating a brief moment of excitement before returning to business as usual. A short hemline still allows for plenty of experimentation: Do you want to elongate your torso with a low-rise skirt or a dropped waist? Or do you want to maximize the contrast in shapes (straight versus not) by bringing the bubble up to your natural waistline? There are no wrong answers.

Because fashion loves to juxtapose shapes, you’ll typically want to pair your bubble-hem skirt with something sleek or minimal up top; remember, let the bubble be like a little thunderbolt in your outfit! That said, there are exceptions to every rule, and one comes courtesy of Renaissance Renaissance’s Cynthia Merhej, who doubled down on a balloon-hem shirt and skirt in her fall 2025 collection, to really exciting results.

A bubble-hem dress is probably the easiest way to dip your toe in the trend; dramatic silhouettes often feel more natural for an evening out than as casualwear. But of course, there are lower-key ways to experiment with the shape too. Consider a shirt or tunic with balloon sleeves, balloon trousers (very boho, seen at Chloé), or the balloon-hem sweatshirt that is a Dries Van Noten specialty. The rule of juxtaposition still applies here: If you’re going big on top, keep it short and narrow on the bottom and show off those gams! In no time you’ll be ready to indulge in expert-level balloon-ing just like God (Rei Kawakubo) intended.