Simkhai Plays With Primary Colors, 'Jelly'-Coated Denim and Elaborate Lace Gowns for Spring 2027

For Jonathan Simkhai, looking toward the future and celebrating innovation doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the past behind. The designer, who debuted his Spring 2027 collection on Friday at the Phillips auction house on Park Ave., challenged his team to “use new materials and new ways to take them forward” this season. But he also turned to vintage references as sources of inspiration, he told Fashionista in a post-show backstage interview. “It’s looking back, but then also looking forward,” he said.

To that end, Simkhai drew on design inspiration from the ’70s and ’90s, but “then [re-imagined] them with more modern fabrics and new silhouettes.” To modernize the classic denim jacket he had on his inspiration board, for example, the designer used a version of the fabric with a “jelly coating” that lent a glossy sheen to the material. “Familiar materials become less immediately recognizable as they are coated, fringed, combined and reworked,” the show notes elaborated

“This season, I really wanted to push the design team and the atelier to just really reinvent some of the fabrics and… [find] that tension between innovation and craftsmanship,” Simkhai said.

The collection also plays with neutrals and bold primary colors in equal measure. But when asked what dictated which looks he rendered in reds, blues and yellows versus which ones in black and white, Simkhai attributed it to his general “creative process” rather than any specific intentionality.

Two standout looks from the collection, according to the designer, are the voluminous, custom three-dimensional guipure lace dresses with billowing, voluminous silhouettes (one white, one blue). Each garment includes 1.6 million stitches, he noted, adding “they’re all completely seamless…the artwork is kind of concealing the shape and the volume; it’s all embroidered as kind of a panel. So it was quite nuanced figuring that out and engineering the lace and the artwork to be so beautifully placed.”

See every look from Simkhai Spring 2027 below.