With the fashion-forward season culminating in Milan, trends, styles, and the stories of SS27 have begun to take shape. Over at Prada, there was a case study on skirts, while Diesel presented a sendoff fit for the house. And across the week, brands have been introspecting their house codes, from Fendi trying to reconstruct its fur house codes to Jil Sander putting its puristic ideals just slightly offside. Here we take a look at all the shows that stuck with us.
Dhruv Kapoor
While society moves at a hyperactive speed—think fast fashion, microtrends, AI, and robots taking over—Dhruv Kapoor looks towards the moments of stillness. How time appears not as progress, but as lived in. In his SS27 show titled ‘Presence’, Kapoor builds on his existing brand DNA, offering familiar Indian motifs and silhouettes and deconstructing them, showcasing a layered, lived-in edge. Madras checks were given a tweed feel, while dhoti-style pants were decorated with beadwork and patterns.
For the modest dresser, the collection offered plenty of pieces—maxi dresses, boxy leather vests, and soft culotte pants all made appearances on the runway. Sheer fashion in the form of lace work and mesh was also layered under button-downs to offer a contrasting look. Following up conceptually was Kapoor’s collaboration with PUMA and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket team, officially bringing IPL to fashion week. Deconstructing the track jacket, the designer showcased three pieces reconstructed with PUMA’s deadstock and softened with handicraft details.
Jil Sander
Held at the Piazza Castello headquarters in Milan, Simone Bellotti continues to refine Jil Sander’s vision in an off-kilter way. Sticking to the standard minimalistic codes of the house, Bellotti SS27 comes with slight deviations. Buttons on trenches were shifted upward, allowing the fabric to flow. Silk skirts were ruched, and so were the blazers. And by far our favourite, dresses got a poofy treatment, going from a subtle asymmetrical cape style to a full-blown balloon dress in bright yellow.
In his show notes, Bellotti mentions that “Movement comes in waves: conceding and receding.” Hence why the collection goes from stiff power dressing with skinny bottoms to colourful, bright, and textured pieces. Here Bellotti gives Spring-Summer both warmth and introversion, either way, the Jil Sander woman is taken care of.
Fendi
Even before the runway, Maria Grazia Chiuri tells us exactly what SS27 Fendi is going to be like. Drawing inspiration from the poem “i like my body when it is with your” by E.E. Cummings, the collection takes a soft, sensual nature just like its reference.
Here, underwear is presented as outerwear, working through lace, embroidery, and, of course, furs. It follows Chiuri’s second thematic piece, which is freedom. Jackets, vests, and dresses take on a baroque-inspired embroidered look. Materials also stood out and mixed with one another—there were glossy and matte finishes, silks beside animal prints, velvet and parchment, and a distinct blurring of gender lines. As a fur house, Chiuri aimed to explore the “lightness of fur” which was showcased in a series of thin boas.
On the accessories front, the designer continues to work on the fan-favourite, the Baguette. Studded, crystallised, and also appearing in a cheeky red and black fish tail look, the Baguettes continue to hold a fanbase on their own. A large croc-embossed Peekaboo with tassels was another favourite, while Mama Baguettes appeared in bronze and leopard print finishes.
MM6 Maison Margiela
Beginning the show by cutting a screen on stage and allowing models to walk through the hole, MM6 Maison Margiela continues to hone in on their disruption. This time, on the table were your everyday basics. Pants were turned into slip dresses, T-shirts and button-ups were turned into skirts, a series of flip-flops were stuck together, creating a platform shoe, waists were dropped in maxi dresses, and capris were ruched around the knees, creating an effect of pants pulled up. Reconfiguring the everyday and playing with silhouettes and proportions, the runway shifts the narrative on the foundations of dressing and shifts the familiar into the unfamiliar.
Max Mara
In a neutral palette across greige, camel, ivory, khaki, and brown, Ian Griffiths brings the term “utility lux” to the Max Mara runway. Here, the woman is both feminine and practical, and her clothes are designed for movement and functionality. There is no glamour here, just well-crafted tailoring and well-cut proportions. What stood out was Griffiths’ use of mesh, which has become a SS27 staple. At one point, a trench dropped into a flowy mesh while a black jumpsuit was intercepted with mesh and opaque panels. On the eveningwear side was a series of black gowns, defined by silhouette and primed for accessory styling. And speaking off, accessories came in the form of large hobo totes, soft and slung across the body. In every sense of the word, Griffiths dressed the busy, ultra-fast woman, who isn’t concerned with fuss and frills but would never compromise on a fine tailored shirt.
Roberto Cavalli
In the opposite direction of the spectrum was Fausto Puglisi’s Cavalli, which brought back everything we love about Y2K fashion. Maximalism, sexiness, heady glamour, and references to the earlier seasons of Sex and the City, Cavalli’s SS27 had it all. On the front row was Cardi B, dressed for the occasion in a fur-trimmed robe and leopard print bodice. And on the runway, across dresses and separates, Puglisi pulled together animal prints, tie-dye prints, furs, embroidery, and bedazzlement in a mismatched form that surprisingly gelled together. For the modest dresser, there were plenty of ruffled maxi dresses and eccentric denim that could easily be paired with an open abaya. Whereas the graphic tops that we would normally see on Carrie Bradshaw could easily be styled in today’s trending layered fashion.
Gucci
Presenting his third collection under the house, Demna’s The Store Show became his culmination of a vision that he had been painting for Gucci. The set? Four monochromatic rooms that serve as the blueprint for future Gucci stores, complete with shelves displaying the brand’s offerings. In this “store” sat the likes of Cardi B, Georgina Rodriguez, Shawn Mendes, and Donatella Versace, among others.
Divided into two parts—a menswear portion and a womenswear portion—Demna took the time to lay out everything he had been building towards across 83 looks. For the men, it was old-money style made contemporary—polo shirts and loafers over cropped leather jackets and low-waist denim held together by horsebit belts. The womenswear began with honouring Gucci’s equestrian legacy, followed by tailored jackets, reworked tartan skirts, and sharp silhouettes that send whispers of his time at Balenciaga. Waists were corseted with three horsebit belts lined one after another, while some waists were accented with one giant horsebit motif. Adding to the collection was the attitude each model oozed, which added to the concept of the interplay between belonging and rebellion, something that Demna believes is what Gucci is all about.
Although it wasn’t as bright or inviting as what one would expect in a Spring-Summer collection, Demna’s latest instalment brings heaps of the Gucci attitude that doesn’t disregard the modest dresser.
Moschino
While we normally turn to Moschino for camp and whimsical irony, the latest SS27 show decided to dial it back and focus on witty details instead. Marking the debut of Creative Directors Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina—the brains behind Italian label Sunnei—the show stood as a palate cleanser for Moschino’s thematic language. Gone were the slogan tees, the hyper-realistic accessories, and the visual humour we had come to expect. Instead, on the roof of a parking garage, models walked in saturated looks that emphasised cut and proportion. Absurdity came in the form of surreal graphic tops and silhouettes that exaggerated the hips. The search for an ironic slogan tee came at the end, a white T-shirt that said “Good Luck”, fitting for the design duo who are rewriting a new chapter for the house and its customer who is navigating this new era.
Santoni
For its SS27 collection, Italian leatherhouse looked towards connections that shape people, places and ideas. Called The Art of Encounter, the collection was presented at the Maison’s Via Monte Napoleone showroom. Working within the concept, the shoes go from sculptural leather flowers to knotted accents to relaxed suede loafers to the Sibille pump, a sleek pair that dresses the Santoni woman. From the sophisticated to the everyday, each composition showcases Santoni’s signature craftsmanship for every Spring-Summer encounter you can think of.
Ferragamo
For Ferragamo’s SS27, Maximilian Davis took to the 1940s, reinterpreting the decade’s fashion into the brand’s signature house codes. As the period in which women in the West began entering the workforce, Davis similarly took inspiration from women’s workwear and tailored it to a contemporary audience. In a palette of sandy, earthy tones, the concept materialised in rounded shoulders, pencil skirt silhouettes, high waists, and patch pockets, appearing as a recurring motif across the collection.
These looks were set alongside lacquered leather pieces reminiscent of Saint Laurent and asymmetrical details in the form of one-sided capes and hemlines. Eveningwear came in a series of black sequinned gowns, interrupted with sheer cuts that can cleverly become modest with layered styling. Whereas on the accessories front, thick leather belts were the key focus. The runway also introduced a new variation of the F wedge, originated by founder Salvatore Ferragamo in 1947, tying the collection from reference to a modern, sculptural, sleek iteration.
Bottega Veneta
Louise Trotter began her Bottega Veneta debut with a bang and continues to stun three collections in. Starting with couture-level experimentation at her debut show, we saw her exploration across textures once again for SS27. Lace, crochet, raffia, fringe, and of course, the intrecciato weave were all over the collection, honing in on Bottega’s relationship to craft. The palette pulled bright, across lilacs, soft pinks, bluish grey, and cream. Whereas hemlines sat all the way down with dropped waists and soft rounded shoulders.
The Bottega woman here is cruising through the Spring-Summer. Styling continues that narrative with open shirts, undone collars, and belt tails swishing to the side. Taking in the collection were the likes of Jacob Elordi, Jorja Smith, and Tyler, The Creator, sitting on resin-filled cardboard boxes created by Artist Illya Goldman Gubin. And closing the show in a voluptuous gown was Kendall Jenner, who continued the SS27 lightness in black ballet flats.
