Tailoring Slips Into The Space Between
John Lawrence Sullivan brought its Spring/Summer 2027 collection to Berlin Fashion Week with a moody, chic, body-aware runway that likes its tailoring sharp and its questions unresolved.
Presented as part of INTERVENTION VI, the collection explores the body as a site of ambiguity — strength and fragility, discipline and impulse, masculinity and femininity all pressed into the same frame. No tidy little fashion binary here. Thee Sullivan mood is much more interesting when it lets contradiction do the walking.
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John Lawrence Sullivan’s Dark Precision
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The key reference point is Bettina Rheims’ Modern Lovers (1990), the portrait series that pushed bodies beyond conventional ideals and prescribed gender codes. That spirit shows up in menswear pieces that shift familiar shapes — boat slit-neck tops, shorts constructed with a skirt-like attitude, and shoes with heels — while womenswear picks up double-cuff shirts and mini-length jumpsuits developed from exaggerated military shirts.
Texture does plenty of talking, too. Raschel lace, net tulle, crushed velvet, patent finishes, snake and lizard patterns, and python leather build a second-skin feeling across the collection. It is sensual, controlled, and just severe enough to keep everyone standing up straight.
The collection also pulls from the Japanese concept of shibari, using binding as both structure and metaphor. Tailored jackets and coats feature self-fabric tapes extending from beneath the lapels, tying the body into the garment and turning restraint into silhouette. It is fashion tension with a very clean line.
Inspired in part by the bondage drawings of Nancy Grossman, the tailoring does not just sit on the body; it negotiates with it. The result is a collection that feels disciplined without being cold, sensual without being lazy, and androgynous without treating ambiguity like a costume.
John Lawrence Sullivan Spring/Summer 2027 Runway Gallery
More looks from John Lawrence Sullivan’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection during Berlin Fashion Week.
Gallery credit: John Lawrence Sullivan Spring/Summer 2027 runway imagery photographed by Finnegan Koichi Godenschweger for BFW.
It is the kind of collection that understands the body can be armor, invitation, contradiction, and warning sign all at once. Basically: chic, moody, and not here to explain itself twice.
Source: FY Magazine. Brand: John Lawrence Sullivan.
