Julie Kegels Spring 2027

Fresh from winning the LVMH Prize, Julie Kegels turned her attention to something rather fundamental for Spring 2027: gravity. The Belgian designer took the familiar story of Newton and his falling apple and transformed it into a collection about weight, movement and the strange beauty of things that refuse to stay perfectly in place. It was cerebral, but never too serious.

The idea appeared throughout the clothes. Dresses seemed to slide down into skirts, sleeves and waistlines dropped unexpectedly, and layers of transparent organza gave the impression that colour was slowly seeping through fabric. Sequined bra fragments appeared suspended between sheer layers, as if caught halfway through a fall. Rather than treating gravity as a limitation, Kegels used it as a design tool, allowing clothes to sag, tumble and shift while retaining their shape.

That felt particularly fitting for a designer whose career has suddenly acquired considerably more weight. Following her LVMH Prize win, Kegels spoke about having more people, conversations, opportunities and responsibilities around her. Her response was not to resist that pressure but to embrace the idea of weight as something grounding. On the runway, that translated into clothes that were deliberately off-kilter but surprisingly buoyant. Sequins moved inside asymmetric hems, waistlines appeared to float, and lacquered full-skirted coats gave the collection a slightly cartoonish sense of movement.

The runway itself pushed the idea further, with a suspended, bouncy surface inspired by physicist Dan Burns’ experiments. There was something appropriately playful about watching the clothes move with it, reinforcing Kegels’ interest in the space between control and collapse. A system of deconstructed undergarments also created the illusion of garments falling apart, while remaining wearable underneath all the visual disruption.

Not everything translated quite as easily. A drop-crotch pantyhose look felt more convincing as a runway experiment than something most people would actually want to wear. But that tension is part of what makes Kegels interesting: her clothes can be strange without becoming purely conceptual. In fact, the designer noted that while skirts remain popular, complete looks from the collection are currently her bestsellers.

There is also a more commercial chapter ahead. Kegels is introducing her first bags for Spring 2027, including the appropriately named Gravity bag, giving the brand another way to carry its slightly surreal take on everyday dressing. With the LVMH Prize bringing both attention and a €400,000 award, Kegels is using the moment to expand her small team and build the business around the ideas that got her here in the first place.