Colleen Allen Spring 2027

For Spring 2027, Colleen Allen traded some of her signature Gothic darkness for the physicality of dance, exploring proportion, movement and a more intimate wardrobe through the designer’s distinctly romantic lens.

Allen’s work has become recognisable for its brooding Victorian references and Gothic romanticism, but Spring 2027 offered a lighter interpretation of that world. The collection was inspired by dance as a spiritual and almost ecstatic practice, with Pina Bausch and Martha Graham providing reference points for thinking about women and the body. Rather than reproducing the familiar language of ballet, Allen looked towards what dancers actually wear, stripping the idea back to warm-up clothes and studio dressing.

Proportion became the collection’s central design exercise. A collaboration with Swedish Stalkings provided the foundation for layered looks, while ultra-cropped boleros and low-slung, narrow trousers created elongated silhouettes. Necklines positioned below the bust extended the proportions of the chest and neck, giving familiar pieces a slightly uncanny quality. Enlarged versions of Allen’s croissant-shaped bags added another playful detail, imagined as companions for the journey to the studio.

The collection’s gowns were less disciplined, draping around the body with an almost improvised quality, while trapeze coats, gauzy white dusters and sweeping capes brought a sense of weightlessness. The pieces moved naturally in the air, particularly in the designer’s TriBeCa loft, where the presentation allowed their volume and movement to become part of the experience. Yet Allen retained a darker counterpoint in a heavy brick-red jersey column covered entirely in metal paillettes, described as the season’s protective, armour-like figure.

That tension between levity and darkness is what keeps the collection connected to Allen’s established world. Spring 2027 may be more lifted and less overtly Victorian, but the clothes still carry her fascination with women as powerful, mysterious and slightly otherworldly figures. The ballerina may be lighter on her feet, but the witch is still very much there.