“Wish you were here” is usually a message sent from somewhere better. For Masha Popova this season, it was addressed from a place that doesn’t exist at all. “I didn’t have a chance to go anywhere,” the NewGen alumnus said from inside Studio Smithfield, the fashion residency program that’s now facilitating its second cohort of young emerging designers, with castings and presentations happening all around us in the former meat market. “I was just working and dreaming of somewhere else.” Spring 2027 became a fantasy of escape and built from the residuals: errant sand in a suitcase creating new textiles, saltwater restructuring a silhouette, colors smoked out from a bonfire.
Popova approached those imagined remnants quite literally. Her signature V-shape waist and bias cut acid-wash denim jean was flocked in swirling patterns so that grains appeared to cling around hems and fraying seams, and damp-looking marks on a top-skirt combo mimicked the outline left when clothes are pulled over a still-wet swimsuit. Burnout cotton created the high-summer shadows of palm fronds, while another piece captured the silhouette of someone taking your photograph. Texture has always been central to Popova’s design language, and here it did much of the storytelling.
The Ukrainian designer also hoped to push herself more on construction: the front, back, and sleeve of a shiny bomber jacket were essentially formed from a single component, the shape determined through dense lines of stitching to create the impression it was constantly billowing, its heft in contrast to the minty knit cardi and short-shorts underneath. Another impressive, sharp-lapeled trench coat was coated with leather paint, which was then rubbed away at the points where a body might naturally wear through it. Almost reptile-like, its soft tactility revealed itself only when touched. “I like when fabrics are kind of eerie and playful,” said Popover.
A new Reebok collaboration treated the Freestyle sneaker like another artifact washed ashore. The “Denim Ghost” added a gauzy layer of denim to the recognizable high-top, while another version was flocked to appear as though its wearer had walked directly through wet sand.
It made sense, then, that this was staged as her first immersive presentation at 180 Studios, showing the clothes on a new crew of models. “We casted mannequins,” said Popova. “They arrive on time. It is an opportunity to get people really comfortable and up close with the pieces.” Against the industrial backdrop, the designer conjured her phantom resort with a sandcastle that featured a Masha Popova flag crowning its turret, plus a tableaux of characters reclining in deck chairs and holding surfboards aloft to catch the last vestiges of summer. The mannequins’ glam leaned into the ’80s bratpack end-scene of it all, with perms and mullets and angular aviators. Strung-out pop ballads mixed with the sounds of the surf.
There’s a neat perversity to building an entire collection around vacationing when you’re a young designer locked into the rhythm of creating an on-schedule collection in London. It was affirming to see Masha Popova stay the course amid the ever-changing tides.
