For SS27, Petra Fagerström plays with what is seen and what remains hidden, distorting conservative silhouettes through sensuality, illusion and unexpected details. In Swedish Summer, nothing is quite what it seems, and every piece demands a second look.
Petra Fagerström presents her new SS27 collection, Swedish Summer, at London Fashion Week, marking the fourth collection from the London-based Swedish designer’s eponymous label. A finalist for the 2026 LVMH Prize, Fagerström continues to explore the identity of the woman at the heart of her creative universe, a process that began with her graduate collection at Central Saint Martins.
This time, her focus shifts towards this woman’s sexuality and the contradictions that shape it. She is complex, free to inhabit seemingly opposing identities and, above all, represents the woman the designer herself aspires to become.
Fagerström looks to the female protagonists of The Piano Teacher, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Theorem and The Graduate, four films that explore themes of psychological manipulation and obsession. Their characters embody conflicting ideas of femininity, inspiring a collection that embraces female duality and contradiction rather than attempting to resolve or suppress them.
The starting point is the language of 1940s and 1950s couture and the archetypes of a traditionally conservative wardrobe, which Fagerström disrupts through altered silhouettes, constructions and materials. The garments occupy a fine line between concealment and revelation, restraint and sensuality. Cuts through black leather expose glimpses of skin, while materials and surfaces deceive the eye, appearing to transform into something else entirely.
This is particularly evident in lenticular pleating, a technique developed by the brand that allows a single garment to hold two images at once. Designs are digitally rendered and printed before being broken down into hundreds of individual pleats, each stitched into place by hand. The image shifts with the movement of the body.
This interplay between illusion and materiality forms part of a broader dialogue between technology and craftsmanship that is central to Fagerström’s work. Rather than rejecting digital tools, the designer uses them as a starting point for creating something that ultimately finds meaning through its physical form. One trench coat, for example, originates from a mistake in an AI-generated image of the garment. Fagerström translates the glitch into its physical construction, creating a coat designed to remain permanently open.
Swedish Summer also introduces Petra Fagerström’s first bag, created in collaboration with Eden Tan’s ETMFG. The design translates one of the brand’s recurring codes (its signature double-front construction) into leatherwork. The collaboration grew out of the Paul Smith’s Foundation designer network, where Fagerström and Tan first met.
Ultimately, one of the collection’s most compelling ideas emerges from the tension between what is revealed and what remains concealed. For Fagerström, seduction is not about showing everything, but about leaving something to be discovered. And throughout Swedish Summer, there is plenty that demands a second look, hidden details, ambiguous materials and images that shift and transform with the body.
Petra Fagerström SS27 images
Petra Fagerström SS27 images
