ERDEM Spring Summer 2027: Beauty on the High Wire

For Spring Summer 2027, ERDEM explores transformation through the extraordinary figure of Barbette, the American aerialist who captivated 1920s Paris by moving between masculine and feminine identities.

Inspired by Barbette’s suspended world, the collection refuses to settle into a single definition of beauty. Masculine tailoring meets exposed lingerie, while structured coats, oversized collars and checked fabrics contrast with lace, feathers and delicate floral embroidery.

The opening silhouettes borrow from traditional menswear. Long tailored coats are layered over striped shorts and shirts with theatrical white collars. Their precise construction is softened by appliqué flowers, embroidered panels and flashes of vivid red. Elsewhere, pale blue workwear shapes are transformed through brocade, corsetry and ornamental details.

The body gradually becomes more visible. Corset-like tops reveal their internal structure, paired with sheer skirts, sculpted volumes and asymmetric dresses. Satin slips appear unfinished or caught in motion, while feathers create a sense of lightness and instability. These are clothes built around contrast, where control and exposure exist together.

Floral motifs remain central to ERDEM’s language, but here they feel disrupted. They emerge across tailoring, bloom over fitted bodices and appear on dresses whose volumes shift between romantic and deliberately raw. Beauty is never presented as something passive. It is constructed, performed and continually transformed.

A century after Barbette challenged the boundaries of identity, ERDEM revisits his story without reducing it to costume. Spring Summer 2027 considers gender as movement rather than destination, balancing discipline with illusion and strength with vulnerability.

Like an aerialist above the stage, the collection holds itself within that tension: precise, fragile and alive with possibility.

Text by Gladys Bazaine, Editorial Director at OVER
Images courtesy of ERDEM