After seasons of viral stunts and runway provocations, Avavav turns down the volume for SS27. No spectacle, no viral show, just Beate Skonare Karlsson returning to form, sculpture and the clothes themselves. Turns out, not trying to provoke might be Avavav’s most provocative move yet.
Avavav, the independent Swedish brand known for its unconventional, surprising and openly provocative runway shows challenging the fashion system, has decided to turn down the volume this time. For Spring/Summer 2027, the focus shifts from communication back to the clothes. Creative director and founder Beate Skonare Karlsson has chosen to return to being a designer, simply and solely a designer.
At the core of Avavav is an approach that doesn’t treat each collection as a self-contained universe destined to disappear after a single season, but rather as part of something cumulative: a family of figurines, a cast of characters that keeps expanding. Think of it like a TV series that every season introduces new protagonists without necessarily abandoning the old ones. The same happens at Avavav, where new figures continuously enter the picture. Some disappear, others return, mutate and evolve until they become a permanent part of the brand’s visual language. Over time, as Karlsson herself puts it, “they start to build a world of their own.”
For SS27, this exploration is primarily about shapes. The garments take on structured, rigid and exaggerated silhouettes that sometimes resemble objects with very little to do with a conventional wardrobe. Pleating is pushed far beyond its usual proportions: a tubular pleated skirt stretches and contracts almost like a spring, while elsewhere constructions expand around the body, creating sculptural, deliberately cartoonish volumes.
This approach is closely connected to Karlsson’s background and wider creative practice, which extends beyond fashion into sculpture, ceramics and object-making. In this collection, rather than simply designing clothes, she seems to have quite literally sculpted them around the body.
Still, some of Avavav’s most recognizable codes remain. Anatomical forms return across tops and jackets, alongside exaggerated draping on trousers and the accessories that have helped define the brand’s aesthetic. The now-iconic Larva Bag continues to mutate too: this time, its shape is transferred onto skirts, transforming an existing object into yet another character within the collection.
We missed Avavav’s shows this season, but taking a break from the pressure to manufacture a new viral moment every season and putting the focus back on the clothes feels understandable and, in some ways, necessary. Especially for a brand that has spent the past few years using the runway itself to question the mechanisms of the fashion industry.
Just think of the last show where Avavav completely reversed the traditional roles of the runway, sending guests down the catwalk while the models stood still and watched them as if they were the audience. Or the collection presented through deliberately unfinished garments, sent down the runway as though there simply hadn’t been enough time to complete them: a provocation aimed at the pressure imposed by a fashion system that constantly demands more collections, more content and more ideas, produced at an ever-increasing speed.
Perhaps, then, the most provocative thing Avavav could do this season was to stop trying to be provocative, at least for a moment.
Avavav SS27 collection
