It’s hard to identify a unifying theme across the architecture of S/S 2027, which oscillated between minimalist, gallery-style white cubes, artificial gardens, and high octane glamour. For some, art was the order of the day – like for Louise Trotter, who commissioned three separate artists to participate in the build of Bottega Veneta’s space, or at Calvin Klein, where curated pieces from the artist Walter De Maria were spread across multiple rooms.
Demna returned with another uncanny facsimile for Gucci, this time a boutique under construction, and in New York and Paris, Tory Burch and Jonathan Anderson respectively let ornamental gardens form the backdrop of their ready-to-wear offerings.
With global fashion month now at an end, discover some of the season-defining sets, as chosen by Wallpaper*.
The best runway sets of S/S 2027
Tory Burch
(Image credit: Tory Burch)
Rocks play an important role in a Japanese garden, their symbolism varied according to quantity (two, three, five, or seven), as well as shape, size, and facade. At the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, artist Isamu Noguchi had seven stones brought from the Uji River in Japan as the centrepiece for his sunken garden, built between 1961–64. Designed to counterbalance a neighbouring skyscraper, the harmonious composition of the rocks evoke a meditative, tranquil quality which contrasts the commerce and chaos represented by the surrounding Wall Street. For S/S 2027 Tory Burch played on this philosophy of balance, staging a show of riotous colour and a ‘more is more’ attitude, with the garden at the centre of a rotunda-runway which she had lined with a rich burnt orange carpet, its fountains visible through panels of red and turquoise, and the buzz of Wall Street overhead. India Jarvis
Calvin Klein
(Image credit: Courtesy of Calvin Klein)
Multi-hyphenate Antwaun Sargent curated an installation of sculptural works by the Minimalist artist Walter De Maria in Chelsea’s Terminal Warehouse, to serve as backdrop for Calvin Klein’s own take on minimalism this season. ‘[They all] speak to De Maria’s fascination with geometry, repetition, and mathematical order, while their polished steel surfaces interact with the architecture, light, and movement of the fashion show,’ Sargent told Wallpaper*. ‘There is a natural connection between the principles of American Minimalism and the design language of Calvin Klein, particularly in their emphasis on clarity, restraint, and essential form.’ ‘American Minimalism was a discipline of removal: take away everything that does not carry the work, until only what is necessary remains,’ added creative director Veronica Leoni, who applied the same principles to her stripped-back S/S 2027 collection. India Jarvis
Read Wallpaper’s conversation with Sargent here.
Burberry
(Image credit: Burberry)
Where the backdrop for Daniel Lee’s A/W 2026 outing for Burberry was a drizzle London at night – trompe l’oeil puddles on tarmac and darkly-lit scaffolding – this season was a brighter and more optimistic mise-en-scène. Staged at Chelsea College of Art, the space for London Fashion Week’s closing show was sparsely dressed with pale-wooden seating and doors, shot through with criss-crossing black lines in a subtle ode to the classic Burberry check. Otherwise the room was an uplifting white, a blank canvas for a collection which featured colourful prints and embroidery created in collaboration with legendary British textile designer Celia Birtwell. India Jarvis
Prada
(Image credit: Prada)
This season’s Prada show space mirrored the staging of Prada’s S/S 2027 menswear outing in June. The transparent Perspex runway was lit from beneath with strip-lighting – reinforcing the maxim of precision which has been at the core of the brand’s recent collections – after all, a lightbox is an essential instrument for meticulous accuracy in many fields. Wallpaper’s fashion and beauty features director Jack Moss described it as a bit like ‘being in an enormous photocopier.’ India Jarvis
Gucci
(Image credit: Paola Pansini)
In anticipation of Demna’s newly conceived store concept for Gucci, opening in Paris this October, the Georgian designer transformed the space at Allianz Mi-Co into a store-in-progress to stage his sophomore ready-to-wear collection for the brand. Replete with stone friezes, plush, dove-grey carpet and velvet accents, and planes of solid marble, the set was a preview of what a Gucci store under Demna could include – yet for all the elegant trappings the artifice of the production was also a part of the storytelling (Demna would never go in for straightforward elegance, naturally). With rigging still visible overhead and faux street-views through ersatz windows, the set design became an uncanny simulacrum, a fitting backdrop for Demna’s ongoing musings on the fantasy of desire. India Jarvis
Saint Laurent
(Image credit: Saint Laurent)
Four chandeliers formed the striking backdrop for Saint Laurent’s spectacular S/S 2027 show – the show many are speculating could be Anthony Vaccarello’s swansong (what a way to go, if so). Three of these were actual chandeliers, albeit blown up to epic proportions, candle-like torches emitting a dazzling gold glow, supported by ornate, three-tiered fixtures which echoed the curved ironwork of the Eiffel Tower – the fourth chandelier, itself illuminated in gold and assuming its position as magnificent Saint Laurent mascot. India Jarvis
Dior
(Image credit: © Adrien Dirand)
Dedicated to the memory of Mathilde Favier, the long-term public relations director for the house of Dior who died in an accident this August, Jonathan Anderson pledged to replant the trees installed for his S/S 2027 show, in the Jardin de Tuileries, so that they will ‘continue to flourish in the years to come,’ a touching tribute to a much-loved figure.
The trees in question were camphors, arranged in clusters either side of the runway which bisected Le Bassin Octogonal – the second time the brand has centred its show around this feature of the Jardin de Tuileries during Anderson’s tenure. Dry ice hung low across the pond, like the fog of a forest at sunrise, before its burnt off by the morning sun. The show also saw the return of a pagoda-like structure around the perimeter of the basin – an enormous construction that days after the show was still in the process of being disassembled. India Jarvis
Maison Margiela
(Image credit: Maison Margiela)
It’s a touching thing, to see designers in the top jobs supporting each other’s work, friendships and respect that transcend company delineations. Donatella Versace and Pierpaolo Piccioli were amongst those in attendance at the Saint Laurent show, while Haider Ackermann attended Nicolas Ghesquière’s Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur award ceremony (the designers are at Tom Ford and Louis Vuitton, respectively). Maison Margiela took this a step further for S/S 2027, staging the collection in a set designed in homage to fellow Belgian designer Raf Simons’ debut collection at Dior back in 2012, immortalised in the 2014 documentary Dior and I. Simons’ celebrated scenography saw floor-to-ceiling flowers in full blossom, each room a dazzling cornucopia of colour. For Margiela, floral designer Mark Colle imagined how this bouquet might have appeared once, as the saying goes, the bloom is off the rose – the vibrancy beginning to fade, the stems beginning to sag, the petals beginning to drop. Timeworn, no longer in its prime, but still beautiful in its own distinct way. India Jarvis
Givenchy
(Image credit: Givenchy)
A specially constructed box in the grounds of Paris’s Hôtel National Des Invalides was transformed into a labyrinth of flattened shapes for Sarah Burton’s latest Givenchy show, hung from the ceiling rafters and emerging from the floor, the latter with graphic cutaways through which the runway snaked. The wooden shapes and stools were designed by James Chinlund, whose production design work in Hollywood includes sets for The Batman (2022), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and Autofocus (2002), and who previously worked with Givenchy’s Sarah Burton on the mirror and spotlight filled cubist space for A/W 2026, back in March of this year. Continuing in this vein, this season’s space could have been a tribute to Peggy Guggenheim’s pioneering The Art of This Century gallery, which opened in Manhattan in 1942 and, within the innovative modular layout by Frederick Kiesler, featured biomorphic shapes and works suspended at unconventional heights. Or, indeed, the graphic constellations of an Alexander Calder mobile. India Jarvis
Bottega Veneta
(Image credit: Bottega Veneta)
The audience seating at Bottega Veneta, cardboard boxed reinforced with resin, were bespoke for each guest, their shape formed by embraces by artist Illya Goldman Gubin. Atop each seat was a single flower, made from leather, handmade in the house’s atelier (some guests speculated that these were intended to be thrown like confetti during the finale, but of course most people took theirs home, and who can blame them). Elsewhere, creative director Louise Trotter commissioned Mark Leckey to curate the soundtrack, while German visual and sound artist Florian Hecker created a site-specific pre-show installation titled Scintillations 20 (2026) which unfolded prior to the show. India Jarvis
Read Wallpaper’s exclusive interview with Florian Hecker here.
Loewe
(Image credit: Paul Riddle)
A ‘three-dimensional space’ somewhere between ‘an arena, a theatre and a gallery,’ was the brief for Casper Mueller Kneer, who constructed the Loewe S/S 2027 show space within a specially constructed white box in the grounds of former royal palace Château de Vincennes. ‘We wanted to build a show space that explored the unique energy of a stadium, arena, or theatre,’ said Loewe creative directors. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. ‘The anticipation, the focus, the shared emotion – that electric charge in the air that everyone can feel. There’s something so real and immediate in those spaces, a sense of presence and proximity that felt very right for this collection.’ India Jarvis
Read more about the project here.
Acne Studios
(Image credit: Acne Studios)
Allusions toward the opulence of antiquity were seen across the details of the second womenswear outing from Acne Studios during its 30th anniversary year: belt and bag buckles which playfully mimicked gilded frames; timeworn brocades; Louis XIV shoes; portrait miniatures on broaches; and renaissance florals fragmented across denim.
Jonny Johansson reinforced this symbolism with a set hung with works by Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed, whose carpet pieces belong to a canon of traditional weaving techniques across Central Asia. The textiles Ahmed creates examine some of the tensions between memory and transformation – in the Acne Studios space they almost appeared to unravel; classic patterns melting into pools of pure colour, contrasting with the beige drapes which hung throughout the gothic nave of the Collège des Bernardins. India Jarvis
Miu Miu
(Image credit: Miu Miu)
Miuccia Prada seemed to be in a sporting mood this season – alongside a Miu Miu collection that included rash vests, sports bras, and New Balance collaboration sneakers, the show itself unfolded across a runway viewed from bleachers and painted like a sportsfield, but with a twist. It was purple, Mrs Prada’s current favourite colour, as she recounted backstage (she also wore purple jewelled earrings for her bow). There are not many athletic venues with purple pitches or courts – I’ve checked. Apparently American college football team the Curry Colonels have one in their hometown of Milton, Massachusetts; and the David Lloyd chain of clubs uses purple for their acrylic tennis courts. Miu Miu is in rarefied company. India Jarvis
Chanel
(Image credit: Chanel)
The monumental central nave of Paris’ Grand Palais – which features the largest glass-and-iron roof in Europe – has long provided a dramatic setting for Chanel’s runway shows, which have seen it take the form of a gleaming supermarket, an airport terminal, and even a launch pad for a Chanel-branded rocket (these show sets were defining facets of Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure). Matthieu Blazy, who presented his first collection for the house a year ago last September, has taken to the task of reimagining the space with aplomb: his own show sets have featured colourful blooming mushrooms, a glowing solar system, and enormous creeping vines – a reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. This season, he filled the space with a glowing flock of 95 birds in flight, suspended over a vast poured-resin runway. It was a metaphor, he said, for the transformation of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel over her lifetime. ‘This is not a historical collection; it’s a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, Chanel took off, and each step she took led to her being free, like a bird.’ Jack Moss
Louis Vuitton
(Image credit: Louis Vuitton)
‘What’s going to be the traffic in the cities of the future?’ asked Louis Vuitton’s womenswear artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière with his latest runway set, created in collaboration with production designer James Chinlund (it was his second set of the season after Givenchy earlier in the week). His answer was traffic jam of 34 floating ‘cars’ which hovered over a runway evocative of a motorway erected in the historic Cour Carrée du Louvre (such juxtapositions of past and future are also hallmarks of the designer’s runway collections). Backdropping a collection which saw garments instilled with new lightness for the world’s changing climate, Ghesquière said the runway set – which featured the house’s signature damier check branding – was a ‘symbolic way of saying how everyone is trying to make the best way possible in this moment’. Jack Moss
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