Auralee

Leave it up to Ryota Iwai to capture the feeling of joyful anticipation for a summer holiday–a feeling we Germans luckily have a word for: Vorfreude–and translate that into one of his strongest Auralee collections yet. Auralee is the brand you go to in need of a certain garment you want to last forever and can wear throughout any trends. This high level of timelessness sometimes runs the risk of lacking a bit of verve, not for Men’s S/S 2027: The striped T-shirt worn with denim pants looks in coastal sunset hues for women and humble red & white stripes for men looked great in their proportions. The flower prints used throughout the line-up kept the looks full of that summery spirit and, thinking back on the full season now, Iwai’s color palette of signal reds, aquatic blues and citrus yellows stood out in an otherwise very earthy, beige season.

Egonlab

Shortlister of this year’s Andam Grand Prize, Egonlab got started with their collection after an alarming quote by Kevin Nompeix’ nephew: “What’s the point in studying, war is coming”. How that played out into the collection? With a sense of unity and messages of hope. We saw lots of similar suit jackets, many of them worn with the same uniform shorts and, surprisingly, some of the coolest shoes of the season: black leather-strapped boots “cuffed” upside down on top. The styling here was cool, the way jackets were tucked neatly into the shorts added to the uniformity of the collection, with the lining of the cuffs cleverly matching the ties.

Rick Owens

Confronted with this scorching heat Paris Fashion Week and most parts of Europe had to deal with last week, Rick Owens changed his afternoon show to be the day’s opener at 10 a.m. Reheating his collaboration with adidas, we saw cool sweatpants, sharp track jackets, sneakers and inflatable garments that are actually ventilated in an effort to keep the wearer cool, all either adidas-logoed or signed with the three white stripes. The Rick Owens Men’s S/S 2027 show was a terrifyingly symbolic climate-catastrophe spectacle, with water fountains blasting in the courtyard of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo and an eerie, bass-heavy soundtrack on loop. This fashion week felt like endurance sports, something Rick, with his typical fashion clairvoyance, already sensed beforehand.

LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi

Louis Gabriel Nouchi hit a pot of inspiration gold using David Lynch’s Twin Peaks characters and general aesthetic feel as the guiding look for his S/S 2027 collection. Opening with a boy scout-meets-park ranger look put together from a parka, checkered shirt worn with brown shorts mounted on the waist with a buckled belt, and hefty black boots set the tone straight away for an untypical outerwear-heavy LGN collection. Cropped trench coats, a cool bomber jacket with a popped collar and a light fleece quarter-zip—Nouchi wants his clothes to be worn. Having gravitated a bit too much to uniform looks in past collections, which seemed like they can only be worn as presented on the runway, Nouchi got into a mix-and-match spirit for S/S 2027, ripping apart suits by putting jackets over one look and having the pants walk down the runway a couple of outfits later. That, and expanding his women’s section drastically by adding some sexy black dresses, made for a more accessible and sellable next LGN collection.

P.S.: With the Brazilian team advancing at the World Cup, Samba mood is taking center stage. Cartier’s Santos collection has that spirit as well and men’s fashion week had a cocktail highlight when Style Not Com’s Beka Gvishiani hosted a soirée with the French brand.