Etro Spring/Summer 2027

Following Marco de Vincenzo’s departure, Etro’s in-house design team has taken over for Spring/Summer 2027 with a collection that deliberately avoids dramatic reinvention. Instead, Halo loosens the house’s familiar codes, imagining them as something lighter and more atmospheric. Powdery tones open the collection before gradually deepening into aubergine and darker evening shades, while pampas grass on the Milan runway reinforces the impression of a sun-faded landscape. It is a sensible approach to a transitional season, although the question is whether Etro’s heritage needs to be softened quite this much.

Paisley remains the obvious anchor, but it has been deliberately stripped of some of its usual intensity. Prints appear blurred, faded and almost sun-bleached across caftans and lightweight pieces, while suede and denim blousons reinterpret the motif through tonal patchwork. Elsewhere, crocheted dresses, ruffled shirts, jacquard trousers, lingerie-inspired tops and slip dresses extend the house vocabulary into a more relaxed wardrobe. The strongest pieces are those where the softening process changes the character of the original Etro code rather than simply reducing its volume.

There is a certain appeal to this restraint. Etro’s globe-trotting, bohemian identity can easily become overloaded with prints, colour and decorative references, so allowing the paisley to recede gives the clothes more space. But the collection sometimes mistakes atmosphere for direction. Without a stronger point of view behind the familiar dresses, caftans and bohemian separates, the wardrobe can feel more like a careful preservation of Etro than a meaningful evolution of it. The palette is considered and the styling is cohesive, but individual looks do not always leave much of an impression.

That makes SS27 an understandable but slightly cautious chapter for the house. The internal design team has demonstrated that Etro’s codes can be softened without losing recognition, and there is something refreshing about resisting the urge to reinvent everything immediately after a creative-director transition. Yet the collection also suggests that heritage alone cannot carry a brand indefinitely. The paisley, bohemia and artisanal references are already there; what Etro needs next is a stronger hand to decide what those things should become. For now, Halo is less a new beginning than a clearing of the air.