Sportmax’s SS27 collection emerged from the intensity of a canicule, soaring heat sweeping across the world, and investing each design with the longing for lightness. From Milan to Venice, Paris to Tokyo, the studio witnessed the toil of workers and commuters through the scorching heat, informing the season’s uniformed archetypes suited for the future. Sheer tailoring, lucite accessories, gradients built from layers of see-through colour, the search for freshness runs through every silhouette. To echo Logic1000’s ‘Under the sun beneath the rainfall’— the studio’s soundtrack during the design process — ‘the real fashion show is in the street’.
Tailoring keeps the memory of a suit, rebuilt in pinstripe voile, viscose and wool, its
open panels reading as illusion. A bermuda short hides under pinstripe trousers, dressed like a businessman, undressed like the season demands. A structured jacket sits above a soft, round leg, its colour built in layers like a mille-feuilles.

The palette channels the pearlescent colors of water in glass, from greys, to striking gem tones. Sheerness moves in silk organza, in écru, orange and blush pink, layered until new gradients subtly emerge. An antique Venetian lace tablecloth becomes a print rather than an embroidery, a ghost of the original, set under an organza trench-coat that reveals and withholds all at once. Long belts and waist-
bands gather the volume of lithe silhouettes, an anchor for shapes that long to catch a breeze.

Leather turns toward deconstruction: buttery nappa and suede on a stripped back skirt, sleeveless jackets and coats with convertible panels that let the body breathe. Denim, closer to flou than cloth, and trompes-l’oeil suit lapels stitched flat onto the chest imagine solutions for formal summer dressing. Architecture turns into a principle of construction.
Sportmax was born in 1969 as a reflection of its time, a legacy the brand pursues through this season’s diverse and multi-generational casting.

Knitwear looks back at sleek cut out swimwear and its textured rib techniques, introducing the idea of an after-work escape to the beach. Shoes and jewellery stay transparent throughout — slides with contrast details, icicle-bijou pumps, glass sculptures peaking out of a cuff, or veiled under a liquid neckline.
The collection has shed everything the season doesn’t allow anymore: restriction and opacity. What’s left is a weightless yet functional wardrobe. Like glass-blowers in the furnace, Sportmax harnessed heat to shape impossible lightness and nuanced transparencies.