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Setting melted Azerbaijani carpets against Prince Charming’s feverish cries, Acne Studios’ SS27 runway fuses courtly Renaissance decadence with raw, lacquered indigo.
If there is one thing Jonny Johansson refuses to do, it is pretend. For Acne Studios’ SS27 womenswear collection, titled Denim Hystoria, the Swedish creative director staged a collision between the ubiquitous world of everyday denim and the ornate theatricality of historical courtly attire. The result is a salty, feverish counter-narrative where New Romantic rakishness collides with deconstructed, modern decadence.
Unfolding against an uncanny backdrop featuring traditional carpets by Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed that appeared to physically melt into memories held within the floor, the runway opened to the wild, cinematic strains of Adam and the Ants’ Prince Charming.
“Reflecting on the journey past and what’s to come, I wanted to keep exploring the energy released by bringing together two things that don’t belong,” explains Johansson. “That tension has always inspired me. Here, denim becomes a canvas that moves through time. The collection is fresh, salty and youthful, it is a study in modern theatricality while affirming something I believe to my core: that Acne Studios always likes to play, but we never want to pretend. For me, it has to be real.”
Photos: Acne Studios
On the runway, historical dress codes were systematically dismantled and re-coded. Full leather looks carried a rich, time-exposed patina, while morning coats featured singed edges, chopped pea coats added sharp proportions, and classic britches were reinterpreted as butter-yellow leather capris. Denim itself became a physical canvas for fine art—lacquered with antique floral prints, torn fragments of Renaissance paintings, and porcelain-like blooms reminiscent of aged ceramics, while feminine smocked silhouettes with high collars echoed the quiet intensity of old masters.
This sharp tension between toughness and preciousness carried seamlessly into the accessories. The Camero bag returned in washed leather featuring webbed straps and frame-like Renaissance buckles, sitting alongside a softly structured iteration of the Musubi with foldover fronts and narrowed straps. Below the waist, court shoes were elevated with teardrop heels, Western boots appeared long and exaggerated with serpent intarsia patchwork, and square-toed mules turned futuristic in metallic finishes. Completed by brooches and jewelry zooming in on historical portraits like close-ups in hand-held mirrors, Acne Studios took classical archetypes and unmoored them from history, proving once again that true luxury lies in total creative freedom—untethered, slightly chaotic, and relentlessly alive.
Photos: Acne Studios