Susan Fang combined romantic dressing with experimental technology for SS27, presenting pearls, petals, porcelain-inspired details and elaborate braids alongside 3D-printed flowers and footwear at London Fashion Week.
The show took place beside the lake at the Barbican Centre, with large towers of reflective silver balloons surrounding the runway and models crossing stepping stones over the water. It was the first time a fashion show had been staged at the Barbican’s Lakeside, with the Brutalist architecture providing a backdrop for a collection inspired by M. Butterfly and the imagined worlds people create around love.
Fang is designing costumes for a new production of M. Butterfly at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, opening in April 2027, and the story also informed her research into Chinese ceramics, clothing and accessories. Those references appeared in blue-and-white floral patterns, transparent layers and porcelain-inspired details.
One white mini dress was covered in delicate cobalt-blue flowers, while an organza gown was layered with pale blue and white three-dimensional flowers. Broken porcelain was also reworked into accessories and embellishments, while jade was repaired with gold to create multicoloured flower jewellery.
Bright colours interrupted the softer palette, with scarlet, vibrant blue and fluorescent green appearing across some of the collection’s more experimental pieces. Flowers and lace were 3D printed in neon shades, while a pixelated flip-flop was designed to appear distorted from different angles.
“Usually there’s really bright colour in 3D printing, and we thought it’ll be so fun because it’s actually quite hard to dye in such bright colour,” Fang said. “We drew these porcelain flower patterns as lace, but then we could also print them in super-neon colour. So it’s a balance of maybe the past and the present.”
The technology was particularly visible backstage, where a 3D printer sat alongside neon shoe components. On the runway, the technology appeared alongside traditional craft rather than replacing it, with Fang combining 3D-printed elements with handwork, embroidery and embellishment.
The collection also featured a collaboration with Crocs, with the Echo Blume footwear unveiled at the show ahead of its global launch in spring 2027. The shoes were decorated with metallic flowers created using Fang’s signature flower system, which uses fractal formulas found in nature.
The beauty look followed a similar contrast. Lead hairstylist Anna Cofone created rigid, high-shine sections alongside braids, flyaways and soft tendrils, reflecting the more structured and romantic elements of the collection.
Fang’s SS27 collection ultimately placed new technology alongside traditional craft, using 3D printing to reinterpret the flowers, colours and shapes that ran throughout its Chinese-inspired references.