Knwls Spring/Summer 2027

For Spring/Summer 2027, Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault gave KNWLS a more polished, bourgeois attitude — expanding the wardrobe without losing the tension between toughness, sensuality and exposure that has defined the label.

KNWLS has always understood the appeal of clothes that look as though they might fall apart. For SS27, however, that familiar sense of instability was given a more considered framework. The collection expanded beyond the label’s signature knicker dresses and ruched gowns into a fuller wardrobe, with shrunken leather jackets, body-conscious leather pieces, ruffle-collar trenches and a plush shearling coat. The result was recognisably KNWLS, but more composed — as though its famously provocative woman had finally grown up.

The collection drew from Chambre Close, Bettina Rheims’ intimate photographic study of women, a book the designers have kept in their studio for years. Its sense of intimacy and undress translated into garments that appeared to be slipping from the body or collapsing under their own weight. In reality, the effect was carefully engineered through what the designers called a “phantom” structure, suspending fabrics in place to create the illusion of clothes coming undone. It is exactly the sort of contradiction KNWLS does well: vulnerability presented as construction.

Romance was given a harder edge through recurring crushed-rose cargo pockets in leather, combining something traditionally delicate with a distinctly utilitarian attitude. The reference points stretched from Karl Lagerfeld to early-2000s boudoir dressing, while mesh and satin softened boxy suits and trousers into something more sensual. Rather than choosing between armour and exposure, KNWLS continued to work somewhere in the uncomfortable space between the two.

The biggest change, though, was the woman wearing it. As the label approaches its 10th anniversary, the fantasy heroine who once seemed almost impossible to reach has been replaced by someone considerably more real: a woman moving through an actual city, with a little French nonchalance and a wardrobe that needs to do more than make an entrance. SS27 suggests that growing up doesn't mean becoming sensible. For KNWLS, it simply means learning how to bring the fantasy into everyday life.