Damson Madder is turning the volume up on cold-weather dressing. For its latest drop, the brand brings together cosy outerwear, unexpected layers and the kind of statement knitwear that makes getting dressed feel anything but routine.
Leading the charge are a new series of fully reversible puffers, designed to give winter dressing twice the mileage, alongside statement bombers that lean into texture and print. A standout wool-blend bomber arrives in a rich mustard check, bringing a distinctly nostalgic feel to the season’s outerwear line-up.
Elsewhere, everyday staples get the Damson Madder treatment. Form-fitting V-necks, two-in-one layers and asymmetric polos play with proportion and styling, creating pieces that feel familiar but never quite straightforward. It’s an approach that makes layering less about necessity and more about the look.
Knitwear, meanwhile, takes a more experimental turn. Deconstructed cardigans, built-in scarf details and double-layered constructions rework the season’s cosiest category with plenty of personality.
Familiar silhouettes are pulled apart, layered back together and given unexpected details, resulting in pieces that feel made for close inspection. The result is a collection that finds the sweet spot between comfort and character: where puffers become statements, knitwear becomes the main event and even the everyday has a little whimsy.
Desirability and ecological responsibility are frequently discussed as opposing forces in fashion, but that’s never stopped Stella McCartney from exploring the most viable ways to combine both. Twenty-five years after launching her eponymous house, the designer returned to Paris with a Spring/Summer 2027 collection that placed that philosophy beneath the surface — quite literally — by turning the runway into a love letter to marine life.
Staged in the rain-soaked gardens of the British Ambassador’s Residence, the show explored an underwater world through colour, movement and creatures, while continuing McCartney’s long-standing use of lower-impact and animal-friendly materials.
The presentation opened with a broadcasted prologue from naturalist Sir David Attenborough, as attendees were handed copies of ‘The Stella Times’ newspaper, an activist print piece detailing the urgent environmental impact of commercial fishing. McCartney borrowed a quote from the third-century philosopher Porphyry to emphasise its importance, stating that “To compare animals to us in order to justify our aggression is absurd; for the wolf kills out of absolute necessity, while we kill for luxury and call it justice.”
McCartney’s instinct for colour came through in sea-inspired shades — seafoam, sage green and warm coral — punctuated by bright aqua blues and flashes of blush pink set against stretches of chocolate brown, cream and deep black. The marine life motifs were everywhere: orcas appeared across knitwear and bags, vintage-style airbrushed dolphins populated casual jersey T-shirts and dresses.
Intricate tops were woven to look like ribbed marine coral, while a striking starfish design adorned second-skin bodysuits and matching hand-shaped clutch bags.
The silhouettes remained characteristically light, with fluid dresses, lean tailoring and sportswear creating plenty of air around the body. Knitwear pieces used transparent fishing line to create oyster-inspired shapes, allowing the fabric to twist into frilly lettuce hems and wavy textures that rippled across the models as they walked.
Classic tailoring revived archival silhouettes through dropped lapels and softly structured jackets, contrasted against sporty jersey elements, minimal bralettes and signature side cut-outs. The lower half of the body received plenty of volume through oversized silhouettes, tracking relaxed, wide-legged trousers and low-rise denim cut from entirely recycled yarn.
On the runway, models carried transparent variations of the iconic Falabella bag incorporating recycled PET bottles and plastic waste, alongside a new mini Appaloosa shoulder silhouette and the heart-shaped Ryder handbag. Footwear stories continued the transparent theme via mesh stilettos and casual loafers, accented by technical trainers from the adidas by Stella McCartney collaboration.
Discover the Stella McCartney Spring/Summer 2027 collection here .
photography. courtesy of Stella McCartney words. Gennaro Costanzo
Identity is what ultimately defines a brand and its essence — and Pierpaolo Piccioli knows exactly what that means after his years at Valentino, where colour, couture and an unabashed sense of romance became inseparable from his vision. After only a year at the helm of Balenciaga , the Creative Director has been carefully investigating where his vision sits: closer to Cristóbal’s sculptural couture legacy, or the commercially potent language of Demna’s streetwear era.
His answer came in the form of a collection that refuses to pick a side, instead pulling the two histories into Piccioli’s own vocabulary through extraordinary volumes, expressive colour and couture techniques applied to everyday clothes.
‘Les Coraux de la Liberté’ by French textile artist Aude Franjou stood in the middle of the runway, echoing that idea in three dimensions. The wrapped-linen sculpture, inspired by marine coral, was chosen as an image of both natural and human ecosystems, mirroring the ways in which organic structures can inform modern pattern cutting.
Spring/Summer 2027 was full of animation and free shapes. Airy fabrics floated around oversized silhouettes, enormous trousers gave the lower half of the body a new scale and dresses seemed almost to inflate as they walked, recalling Cristóbal’s sense of volume.
Piccioli’s instinct for colour came through in saturated purples, electric blues, vivid oranges and accents of magentas set against stretches of white, beige and black. Colour-blocking — one of the signatures most closely associated with his Valentino years — returned with plenty of confidence.
The cleverest clothes were those where the couture methodology was almost hidden in plain sight. A humble white shirt emerged with a sculpted peplum created through rows of stitching; denim was cut on the bias; T-shirts acquired sculptural proportions. Piccioli has described the aim as bringing couture into the daily wardrobe, taking the techniques traditionally reserved for exceptional clothes and applying them to garments as familiar as jeans and shirts.
There was also a lot for the eye to linger over. Structured decorations gathered around the hems of dresses or expanded into oversized collars, while laser-cut surfaces and Calais lace opened sections of the body without making the clothes feel overly ornamental. Some of the most striking silhouettes were almost entirely about what happened at their edges: petals, architectural flounces and extended fabric trails changed the outline of a garment as it moved.
Accessories added another layer of attitude: thick Bow Mask sunglasses gave the faces a slightly futuristic severity, substantial boots anchored the more inflated proportions, and long cummerbund-like extensions wrapped around waists before falling down the legs. Even the bags — supple Nodo and Silhou styles — were treated as objects shaped by hand, while softer footwear marked a noticeable departure from the chunkier shoes associated with the house in recent years.
The finale belonged to Anok Yai , who closed the show in a hugely voluminous, ultra-sheer pink dress that bounced and floated around her as she walked, transforming the final look into a study in fabric, air and movement.
For Piccioli, couture is “a laboratory of possibilities”, and this season those possibilities were allowed to stretch considerably.
Discover the Balenciaga Spring/Summer 2027 collection here .
photography. courtesy of Balenciaga words. Gennaro Costanzo
If you ever find yourself struck by the sudden urge to turn everything you own into solid gold, you can now blame Anthony Vaccarello . Marking a decade at the helm of Saint Laurent , the designer has seemingly contracted a severe case of the Midas touch, transforming the Maison’s Spring/Summer 2027 ready-to-wear collection into an alchemical study of light, texture and one particularly mythical colour.
Across the Paris runway, gold appeared in almost every conceivable guise, building on Monsieur Saint Laurent’s own affection for the shade, which he once described as “the colour of the sun.”
Vaccarello took that fascination considerably further for SS27, moving between pale and matte gold, burnished tones, Byzantine references and shades with an almost Brutalist quality. Under a canopy of golden chandeliers, the colour seeped into the clothes through a lavish mix of surfaces and materials.
Lamé, organza, guipure lace, mousseline, brocade, jacquard and metallic cotton each caught the light differently, while latex coated in gold leaf pushed the idea towards something altogether more molten. Sahariennes, trenches, blouses and wrap skirts drawn from the Saint Laurent archive appeared alongside Vaccarello’s broad-shouldered coats, voluminous blousons and tightly cut tailoring, with swathes of fur adding another layer of texture.
Accessories received their own gilded treatment, from oversized jewelled filigree earrings to footwear constructed from metallic chains wrapped around twisting snake heels. The extravagance was substantial, but it remained tethered to the familiar codes of Saint Laurent, with even the most ornate pieces retaining the house’s characteristic sense of seduction and precision.
After a parade of gold, the closing looks appeared almost startlingly black, with velvet tailoring giving way to a series of expansive evening dresses in organza and other flowing fabrics. The contrast gave the finale an almost nocturnal quality, absorbing the light that had dominated the first part of the show.
“Nothing radiates and reflects light like gold,” Vaccarello writes, before describing his attraction to the colour’s ability to transform everything around it. “What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”
That line has taken on added significance after the show, with widespread speculation that SS27 could mark the end of Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent tenure. The house has not announced a departure, however, leaving the black finale to speak for itself — should anyone choose to read it that way, of course.
Discover the Spring/Summer 2027 collection here .
photography. courtesy of Saint Laurent words. Gennaro Costanzo