VIVETTA Spring/Summer 2027

Vivetta Spring/Summer 2027 arrives at a delicate moment for the house. With founder Vivetta Ponti no longer at the helm, the in-house design team has the difficult task of proving that the brand can move forward without losing the eccentricity that made it recognisable in the first place. Treasure & Trinkets approaches that transition by turning down the trompe-l’œil tricks and excessive embellishment, replacing them with more sophisticated silhouettes and a lighter touch. The result is noticeably more grown-up, although thankfully not entirely grown out of its sense of fun.

The collection’s strongest shift is in proportion. Diaphanous blouses are given structured plastrons, waist-cinched jackets sit above elongated skirts, and strapless dresses incorporate bustier-like construction without becoming overtly corseted. References to the 1950s and ’60s appear through knee-length coats, Nehru collars and precise tailoring, while an equestrian-inspired white cape dress brings a slightly more formal note. A black tuxedo jacket paired with chocolate satin shorts makes the new direction particularly clear: the clothes are polished, but there is still an element of mischievousness underneath.

That playfulness survives most effectively through the accessories and surface treatments. Small silver snaps punctuate jackets and shirtwaist dresses, while chain-mail skirts and tunic dresses are scattered with brightly coloured faux gemstones. The most convincing pieces are perhaps the jewellery, which reworks recovered beads, glass drops and components from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s into one-off necklaces, earrings and bags. Rather than simply reproducing archival Vivetta, these fragments allow the idea of memory to become part of the construction. They feel collected, rearranged and slightly accidental — precisely the sort of imperfection that keeps the sophistication from becoming too serious.

The danger is that in stripping back Vivetta’s more obvious signatures, the collection occasionally gets close to becoming simply “pretty”. Sorbet yellow, peach, pale blue, nude, black and bone white are beautifully calibrated, while viscose, cotton gabardine, double-face cotton and nylon taffeta give the clothes an appealing lightness. But the brand’s previous identity was built on a much stranger relationship between fashion and fantasy. SS27 is therefore most interesting not as a finished reinvention, but as the first evidence of how that eccentricity might evolve. The new Vivetta woman may be more sophisticated, but she still keeps a box of colourful trinkets somewhere in the wardrobe