David Koma started this season thinking about cool summers. The contradiction led him to the ice rink: specifically, the fiercely competitive world of 1990s figure skating, where rhinestones and theatrical femininity drape their discipline to make everything seem effortless. Tonya Harding was the most potent character reference: not because of the spectacle of her story, but for what Koma described as her “determination and rawness.” The spring 2027 collection moved fluidly through a skater’s wardrobe, from warm-up layers to the rink reveal, sticking the landing with Koma’s key signatures like sharp-edged tailoring and feather details.
The color palette told a lot of that story: inky black and milky ivory punctuated by satiny, sugary shades, all cutting across each other to stop things from veering too saccharine. There was a minty blue bomber jacket with a technical neckline and skirts fringed or gathered like a scrunchie, candyfloss pink knickers, metallic column gowns, and sculpted, boned bodysuits that abbre
Koma also became fascinated by compulsory figures—the painstaking circles and figure-eights skaters trace onto the ice and are judged upon. One black minidress featured the concentric forms rendered in hand-beaded crystals with mother-of-pearl centers inserted into the garment like jewelry. Geometric shapes appeared elsewhere as hipbone cutouts blooming with fringe or as internal metal constructions that pulled and gathered fabric around the body to bolster some of that showtime dynamism. Other pieces, even at rest, seemed to vibrate. A succession of gowns and skirts with internal boning extended away from the body and supported shimmering layers of silk fringe and feathers plumes. “I like to animate the body and create this organic movement,” Koma said, finding an elegant way to translate skating’s centrifugal force.
After scores had been served and the rink closed, the broader shift here was toward giving the David Koma woman more life beyond the red carpet. There were still high-glamour hallmarks, but they were increasingly embedded into ready-to-wear separates, knitwear, and layering pieces. Koma spoke of wanting the wearer to experience his world across different categories and occasions. The core proposition remained glamour as a form of strength. Said the designer: “It’s becoming harder to define the David Koma woman and I think that’s important, to see how characters across the world translate my vision.”
Source: www.vogue.com
