Spring/Summer 2027 made fashion feel human again.
Fashion Month ended in Paris this week, and after four cities and hundreds of looks, Spring/Summer 2027 is surprisingly difficult to summarise. There were skirts, certainly. Prada sent 63 of them down the runway. There was lingerie, fringe, lace and tailoring, an unexpected amount of chocolate brown for a summer season, and, at Saint Laurent, enough gold to fill almost an entire collection. But there was no single silhouette or styling trick that seemed to explain what was happening. If anything, the season felt a little random.
Maybe that was what made it so interesting. Fashion has become increasingly easy to categorise in recent years. Quiet luxury, clean girl, coquette, old money. This season seemed less interested in giving us another aesthetic to inhabit. Designers followed ideas quite far, sometimes to the point of excess, and didn't seem particularly worried when things became contradictory or a little strange.
The clothes reflected that. Shirts were wrinkled, underwear showed, hair was left undone. At Miu Miu, nail polish was deliberately drawn beyond the nail bed. Spring collections came in chocolate brown, navy and black. Familiar clothes appeared everywhere, but they weren't necessarily worn in familiar ways. There was a sense that the person inside the clothes was allowed to remain visible.
New York: Loosening Up
New York started with clothes that felt recognisable but rarely completely straightforward. Denim was coated, painted and recoloured. Fringe appeared throughout the week. At Khaite, vintage-style bras became tops and sheer skirts revealed high-waisted briefs underneath. Conner Ives mixed matador references with dinner napkins worn as headscarves and hand-painted fish skin in place of exotic leather.
It was less about one particular silhouette than a slightly more relaxed attitude towards getting dressed. The polished New York woman was still there, but she looked less finished than usual. Lingerie didn't necessarily need to be covered. Something practical could sit next to something precious. An outfit could feel as though it had been put together by a person rather than styled towards a particular aesthetic.
That feeling would become more obvious as Fashion Month went on.
London: Undressing the Past
London took things somewhere more romantic. Corsetry and lingerie appeared across the week, from McQueen to Erdem and Simone Rocha, bringing some very old ideas about femininity back into the conversation while changing the way they were worn.
There is already something contradictory about the corset. It can be restrictive and sensual at the same time. Lingerie can feel vulnerable, sexual, private or performative depending on who is wearing it and why. Bringing these things out from underneath clothing inevitably changes their meaning.
There was another contradiction running through the season too. At a time when “eat the rich” has become part of the cultural vocabulary, designers seemed strangely fascinated by aristocrats, society women and Upper East Side prep. Whether that was sincere or ironic wasn't always clear. I don't think it necessarily needed to be.
Fashion has always borrowed from worlds it simultaneously romanticises and makes fun of. This season seemed particularly comfortable sitting somewhere in between.
Milan: Committing to the Idea
Then came Prada.
Miuccia Prada described skirts as being “like T-shirts”, and almost the entire collection was built around them. What was interesting was how little the collection tried to convince us of one particular skirt. There were pencil skirts and pleats, sheer versions and layered versions, strange proportions and decoration. A checked shirt was left open over a tiny red bra. Glossy black was layered over grey checks. Delicate shoes appeared beneath combinations that didn't look entirely resolved.
It wasn't really a declaration that one skirt shape was back. Prada simply took one of the most ordinary pieces in a wardrobe and kept going with it.
Bottega Veneta did something similar in a much quieter way. Some of the looks were almost aggressively normal at first glance: a grey shirt and trousers, a white skirt, pieces you already understand. What made them interesting were the interventions. A leather cord knotted around the waist, crochet, weaving, fringe, fabric that was allowed to crease and collapse rather than sit perfectly.
The craftsmanship was extraordinary, but it didn't feel obsessed with erasing every irregularity. If anything, the work became more interesting because you could see it.
That feels particularly relevant now. Luxury has spent decades associating expense with perfection. Perfect surfaces, invisible construction, campaign images in which nothing is out of place. Meanwhile, perfection itself has become incredibly easy to manufacture. We can generate flawless images in seconds and edit almost anything we don't like out of a photograph.
Perhaps that changes what feels valuable. A knot, a crease, an irregular texture or a surface that has obviously been worked by hand suddenly tells you something that perfection can't.
Paris: No Need for Consensus
By Paris, any attempt to find one answer for Spring/Summer 2027 felt fairly pointless.
Jonathan Anderson's Dior was light, sheer and delicate, with familiar house codes softened through transparency and movement. Balenciaga applied couture techniques to T-shirts, denim and bombers. Alaïa barely seemed interested in looking particularly summery. Chocolate brown appeared with navy and deep green, and some of the collection could easily have belonged to another season altogether.
The clothes were sensual and precise but also incredibly wearable. They didn't seem designed around the need to produce an obvious Spring/Summer image.
Saint Laurent went in the opposite direction and covered almost everything in gold. Gold lamé, brocade, lace, even latex brushed with gold leaf. Personally, I found the repetition almost excessive and at times a little flat. But the more I thought about it in relation to the rest of the season, the more the commitment itself became interesting.
There was something unapologetic about taking one idea and allowing it to become the entire collection. Prada did it with skirts. Saint Laurent did it with gold. Neither seemed particularly concerned with moderation.
Maybe that is the closest thing SS27 had to a common language. Designers weren't agreeing with each other, but they were committing to their own ideas. One collection could be interested in everyday clothes while the next wanted aristocratic fantasy. Bodies were exposed in one show and wrapped in tailoring in another. Spring came in pastels and florals, but also in black, chocolate and gold.
It didn't always add up neatly. That was part of its appeal.
An Homage to Imperfection
Looking back at the month, I don't think imperfection was really a trend in the conventional sense. The point isn't that everyone should start wrinkling their shirts or deliberately smudging their manicure. Turning imperfection into another prescribed aesthetic would rather defeat the purpose.
What felt different was the amount of permission in the clothes.
A shirt could wrinkle. Underwear could show. Hair didn't always need to look done. Nail polish could escape the nail. A handmade surface didn't need to disguise the process behind it. Colours could feel wrong for the season. Something beautiful could be worn with something completely ordinary. A designer could become almost irrationally obsessed with one idea and follow it anyway.
We have become very good at making ourselves coherent. Our wardrobes have an aesthetic. Our homes have one. So do our holidays, our Instagram feeds and eventually, if we're not careful, our personalities. There is nothing inherently wrong with aesthetics. Fashion is one of the great pleasures of constructing how we want to be seen. But somewhere along the way, the aesthetic can start doing the opposite of what personal style is supposed to do. Instead of revealing something about us, it smooths away the parts that don't quite fit.
SS27 felt like a small rejection of that instinct.
The most interesting clothes this season didn't hide the person underneath them. They made more room for her. For her body, her taste, her contradictions and the slightly strange decisions she makes simply because she likes something.
Maybe that is why the wrinkles, exposed lingerie, strange colour combinations and visible handwork felt so appealing. They weren't imperfections that needed correcting. They were signs that someone had been there.
Fashion doesn't have to make us look less human.
It can give us more ways to be human.
An homage to imperfection.
