For the third Jil Sander outing of Milan-raised Simone Bellotti, it feels as though the designer had a lot of fun. The most optimistic color palette yet, in hues of yellow, blue and red at the end, and fabrics like super-washed silks that guests were aching to reach out and touch came with some juxtaposing Hamburg sternness in the leathers and exact dart placements on the suiting. Of course the beige/greige/grey was there too but lightened up. It made this his strongest collection for the brand yet. A general play of opposites was on the menu: everyday office grey suiting met couture-like volumes, as in one bulbous, draped yellow gown in the middle of the line-up, which kept the guests’ attention up and made us genuinely wish for the collection to just keep going.

The devil is in the details — which feels redundant to say after a Jil Sander show — but we saw some rather atypical kinks in the way jackets were skin-tight in the front, only to bunch up around the mid-back. Or jackets being wrongly buttoned, which wasn’t a styling cue but rather the actual manual construction, as Bellotti confirmed post-show. Continuing on this thought, he explained that this distortion of precision is what excites him about the work, something he finds fun in. The shoulder area, which always appears to levitate slightly above the body; the buttoned central front of jackets creating a tight pull at the waist, all this is playing into the subtle silhouette distortion as well.

The imperfections are what make his collections so enjoyable, because it makes them honest. And this honesty is his design language, which we witnessed at his former employer too, here it’s starting to feel more lighthearted — and that made for a wonderful 2026, or rather S/S 2027 Jil Sander.