In pictures: The art of undressing at KNWLS SS27

At the risk of sounding like a petulant child, it’s good to have KNWLS back where it belongs. Milan Fashion Week was the happy beneficiary of the label’s last catwalk, when Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault hopped over to Italy last September to debut their KNWLS x Nike collaborative collection. Now, back on home soil, the duo’s decade-long courtship of London’s coolest girls bore fruit yesterday afternoon, as the capital came out in force for their big return. For SS27, the front row included but was not limited to: model Alva Claire, rapper Deto Black, singer Crystal Murray, athlete Amy Hunt, plus power couple Lava La Rue and Rhian Teasdale. The cult fragrance brand Escentric Molecules had also been drafted in for the occasion, with its signature Escentric 01 drifting through the space, a scent that adapts to each individual wearer (quite apt for such a varied frow).

“With its Spring/Summer 2027 collection, the KNWLS heroine comes undone,” read this season’s show notes, placed on seats at the southeast London venue. Knowles and Arsenault had been inspired by Bettina Rheims’s Chambre Close, a seminal photographic series depicting women in various states of undress. A model in a cream girdle was the first to appear on the catwalk, her white skirt, held up by garter clips, unhitched on one side to reveal white briefs below. Vest straps slid suggestively from shoulders, camis and T-shirts were slashed with peekaboo openings, and an exposed bra peeked from below a purple cardigan. “Exposure becomes an essential feature of KNWLS’ language of empowerment,” said the designers.

But though the KNWLS woman may have come undone, a closer inspection of the collection revealed that all was not as it seemed. The slashes in the tops and camis were in fact panels of sheer fabric, stitched in to make it look as if the clothes had been ripped. Skirts that seemed to be falling to the ankles were also held up by sheer panelling. Hemlines that appeared to float upwards were actually held in place by boned hems, while metal wires held fallen straps below the clavicles. “Held together by silent architectures of phantom tulle and invisible wire, undoneness is an illusion,” continued the show notes.

With this aesthetic sleight of hand, Knowles and Arsenault hand the power back to the KNWLS woman – her ‘undoneness’ is a deception, and only she has the authority to truly reveal herself. “Rather than a mark of dishevelment or decline, it’s a reflection of an exacting self-possession and control, of a cunning knack for twisting and perverting expected presentations of empowered femininity,” concluded the designers. “Of the power to be found in moments of slippage, unravelling and reconstruction.”

Scroll through the gallery above for more looks from the collection

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