For Spring Summer 2027 Aje's Edwina Forest and Adrian Norris were inspired by the concept of "unfurling". Florals have been a central tenet of the brand's DNA for its nearly 20 year history, and Ed and Aje were thinking about the magnificence of Australian natural botanicals like waratahs, myrtle, and wattleseed when they started designing SS27. It was a concept inspired, in part, by the Australian artist Vicki Lee with whom the brand collaborated on this collection. Lee and her husband/collaborator Ted O'Donnell revived their iconic floral series for Aje's show, which was staged at the Collège des Bernardins during Paris Fashion Week. Flowers were shaped into living artworks worn on the body, printed onto soft silk bubble-hemmed gowns, woven into embellished silk organza or embossed into sleek leather outerwear.
Styled by the great Lolita Jacob, models swaggered beneath looming white stone arches to a thrumming backdrop of Underworld synths. The show was a triumph of beauty, a reminder of the magnificence of that crutical fleeting moment between the formation of an idea and its incarnation.
PERSONA was on the ground to see the collection up close, alongside a formidable line-up of PERSONAs of Interest in the FROW. We tracked them all down, from Lou Doillon to Paloma Elsesser, Soo Joo Park to Georgia May Jagger to get the lowdown on our favourite question: what is good taste?
All images courtesy of Aje.