For Spring/Summer 2027, Kiko Kostadinov was inspired by artist Agostino Bonalumi. Monochromatic paintings juxtaposed geometric shapes under stretched-out canvases. While the reference was taken literally in rare moments, as in a brown top with glued boning that resembled one of Bonalumi’s pieces, his sculptural minimalism was used as a North Star.
The artist’s forms are conducive to a movement that began last season – the paring down of his vocabulary, boiling his idiosyncratic language to its essential forms – the evolution here is deliberately gradual. Rather than introducing a new silhouette outright, Kostadinov allows ideas to migrate from one garment to another, becoming increasingly abstract as the collection unfolds.
A lozenge-like geometric form first protrudes from the chest of T-shirts, appearing almost as an anatomical intervention. As the collection progresses, it hardens into rigid, stringless necklaces on the centre of the chest before reappearing once more as the structure of belts. A single motif is allowed to evolve across categories, shifting function while retaining its sculptural presence.
Elsewhere, familiar garments are disrupted through measured interventions. Shirt linings emerge beyond their edges, exposing construction that would typically remain concealed, its form flowing as models walk by.
Tailoring becomes the primary site of experimentation. Jackets are not dismantled but gently recalibrated: lapels are abbreviated until they become little more than extensions of the collar, while proportions are adjusted to create new silhouettes without abandoning traditional dressmaking logic. Funnel-neck wool coats and technical fabric jackets reinforce this controlled architectural quality.
The same economy extends to accessories. Bags are reduced to singular pieces of leather folded onto themselves, their construction as restrained as the garments they accompany.
Words by Pedro Vasconcelos
