An exposed bra strap, clothes wrinkled as if fresh from a midday tryst, and a cheeky, unexpected peek of derriere—the undeniable whiff of sex has once again wafted over the global fashion capitals for the spring 2027 ready-to-wear collections. Of course, as many seasoned fashion observers and editors have long noted, spring collections are almost invariably about sex in some form or another. It is difficult to deny nature when rising temperatures inevitably coax individuals to peel off heavy layers and reveal a titillating glimpse of flesh beneath. Yet, this season made it unmistakably clear that sex is heavily on designers’ minds from a conceptual standpoint. What is most interesting, however, is not the subject itself, but the distinct ways each major city on the international fashion week circuit chose to interpret the erotic promise of carnal delights.
No culture is an absolute monolith, and it goes without saying that one person’s preferred aesthetic or kink can easily be another’s complete turnoff. Still, fascinating regional trends coalesced around the far-flung capitals of Europe and America, revealing how geography, local attitude, and cultural philosophy shape the language of clothing and desire.
In New York, the runways were mostly characterized by polish and sleek sportswear, but a cohort of younger, more rebellious designers shrewdly approached the subject of sex with a different lens. Through their creative prism, eroticism took on a gritty, funky, and even irreverent attitude, capturing that ineffable element of youthful downtown cool. Take, for example, Eckhaus Latta—long known as purveyors of bleary knitwear and unwieldy denim—which presented a surprisingly self-assured and distinctly sexy collection. One could look at the offhanded ease of a standard T-shirt with rolled sleeves paired with a diaphanous, translucent skirt floating behind; airy shifts made of filmy, see-through layers; all those shoulder-baring sleeveless tops; and the oddball cool of golden netting cut intricately into trousers or a sleeveless minidress. It was undeniably sexy, but it was rendered with an insouciant shrug and a disaffected sigh that felt entirely authentic to the city’s independent spirit.
Meanwhile, designer Emily Dawn Long approached the theme with an entirely different kind of cheekiness. Long cut her dresses so low in the back that they exposed the upper regions of what is colloquially known as the butt crack, and she successfully pulled off a similar stunt with carefully engineered keyhole jeans. She charmingly refers to this design choice as "southern cleavage." To offset the stark exposure, however, she edged the revealing peekaboo details in dainty little frills, resulting in garments that were simultaneously provocative and a little arch. In a preview ahead of her presentation, Long articulated a sentiment that felt deeply rooted in an American tradition—that being sexy should never negate a person’s sense of humor. If one truly wants to understand where Long’s mind is at regarding the intersection of fashion and provocation, they need only consider her popular screen-printed t-shirts, one of which bluntly reads: Take Off Your Clothes.
Across the Atlantic, the Milanese treated sex almost as an intellectual pursuit, bringing to mind Prada’s esoteric and fiercely erotic mystique. While Miuccia Prada and her creative coconspirator Raf Simons settled on one of the most historically provocative garments in a woman’s wardrobe—the skirt, with its tantalizing promise to reveal a little or a lot of leg—they found a dizzying array of ways to present it to the world. They paired skirts with tough-girl leather jackets, reserved librarian sweaters, tomboy plaid shirts left casually unbuttoned, and, naturally, skimpy bras. In essence, the collection served as a meditation not just on the skirt as a foundational garment, but on the innumerable ways a woman can exist, move, and occupy space in the modern world. In doing so, it presented a rich panoply of sexiness—encompassing nerdy, brazen, demure, and sophisticated archetypes—and reflected the many fluctuating moods and contours of female desire.
Another prominent Milanese presentation came from Simone Bellotti at Jil Sander, where a careful study of minimalist imperfection took center stage. Creased dresses, askew coats, and haphazardly fastened jackets gently hinted at a postcoital rush, as if the wearer were hurriedly leaving some clandestine liaison, buttoning their outerwear in a rush with no time to smooth away the sordid wrinkles. In that specific execution, the clothing brought to mind an unsavory, lingering tension that called to mind the atmospheric, moody cinematic works of Italian auteurs like Michelangelo Antonioni or Federico Fellini.
If sex is primarily a condition of the mind in Milan, it remains very much a condition of the body in Paris. In the French capital, observers received a frank, straight-from-the-hip approach to eroticism, best expressed in Haider Ackermann’s simmering collection for Tom Ford. It was a deadly serious, highly seductive romp that aligned perfectly with France’s confrontationally blasé approach to le sexe. In a word, the collection was unmistakably horny. It featured all manner of slick, pettable leather; men strutting in sweaters and underwear that, as they passed the cameras and front-row seats, revealed their fully exposed buttocks; and women wrapped in gowns or maillots slashed down the front to reveal deep valleys of torso or miles of leg leading upward to more intimate territories. It was absurd, it was lewd, it was defiantly gratuitous, and above all, it was 100 percent Gallic.
No matter how an individual personally feels about sex—and in the realm of fashion, chances are everyone holds some strong opinion on the matter—these divergent runway visions ensure that there will be a specific aesthetic, mood, and silhouette available for everyone to indulge in when the warm weather finally returns.
