Stepping into Olivia Black’s Wish You Were Here Spring/Summer 27 world felt like taking a dip into the most colourful memories of your life. With nostalgia and memory being a recurring theme this season for a few prominent LFW designers, Black takes us into her own version of a summer dreamland. Clean, tailored and sophisticated, the collection was themed around escapism, nostalgia and fleeting summer memories. Surrounded by wild poppies and floral installations, the whole venue indeed felt like an escape from ordinary life.
The collection turns nostalgia into a wardrobe of sun-soaked contrasts, beautifully balancing polished tailoring with the languid ease of summer wear. Like a summer breeze, lightness is central to the collection, with translucent lime layers falling over flashes of coral and red, while butter-yellow pleating creates movement through sculptural, tiered silhouettes. Sensuality takes centre stage in the final look with a vermilion orange draped gown featuring an asymmetric neckline and a softly flowing train that heightens the show’s romance. Dresses with playful asymmetry, denim reworked through belted utility sets and contrasting white topstitching, it is a collection that effortlessly transitions from conceptual runway to the reality of summer soirées and cocktail hours.
The collection continued to play with the tension between structure and fluidity, moving seamlessly from relaxed tailoring to floaty, feminine silhouettes. A cream pinstripe suit, styled with a vivid orange shirt and a tiny floral accent, offered a fresh take on traditional suiting, while the collection’s gender-fluid sensibility revealed itself through styling that effortlessly blurred conventional boundaries. There was something particularly joyful about Black’s approach to summer dressing. Nothing felt overly complicated; instead, the clothes captured that effortless feeling of being dressed for a long summer day with nowhere to be. Wish You Were Here ultimately felt like exactly what its name promises — a fleeting reverie, translated into colour, movement and clothes made for making memories.
