Erdem Spring/Summer 2027

For Spring/Summer 2027, Erdem Moralıoğlu looked to the extraordinary life of Barbette, the Texas-born aerialist who became an avant-garde sensation in 1920s Paris, for a collection built around the tension between masculine and feminine. Presented at Camden’s Roundhouse during London Fashion Week, the show explored Barbette’s transformation on stage, where he performed in drag as a glamorous aerialist before removing his wig and revealing his male identity. A muse to Jean Cocteau and Man Ray, Barbette’s ability to move between identities became the starting point for a collection that treated gender not as a fixed idea, but as something performed, transformed and continually reimagined.

That tension played out across the clothes. Mannish tailcoats, tuxedo jackets, military-inspired parkas and oversized wool coats were paired with bedazzled knickers, satin bra tops and barely-there athletic shorts. Crystal-studded bodysuits and textured satin mini-dresses brought a sense of showgirl glamour, while cropped knits and tailored jackets introduced a more understated masculinity. Elsewhere, floral gowns dissolved into elegant fringe, lace slip dresses were layered over lingerie-inspired pieces, and feather-trimmed coats added another theatrical dimension. The result was a wardrobe constantly moving between restraint and excess, tailoring and exposure, masculine structure and unabashed femininity.

Barbette’s relationship with performance was particularly fitting for Erdem, a designer known for drawing on historical figures and translating their stories into contemporary dress. Here, the glamour of the 1920s circus and cabaret world was filtered through the house’s romantic vocabulary of florals, lace, embroidery and embellishment, while the more masculine pieces gave the collection a sharper edge. The juxtaposition never felt like a simple collision of opposites; instead, each side appeared to give the other more meaning, with masculine tailoring making the fragility of the lingerie more pronounced and the extravagance of feathers and crystals disrupting the formality of traditional suiting.

At its heart, Erdem SS27 is a collection about transformation — the moment when one identity becomes another, and where performance can reveal as much as it conceals. Barbette may have disappeared from the spotlight after his brief period of fame, but his particular combination of athleticism, glamour and gender fluidity remains striking. Erdem brings that story into the present through clothes that refuse to settle comfortably on one side of the masculine-feminine divide, creating a collection where ambiguity becomes its own form of expression.