I did not expect to finish watching a Zimmermann show thinking about insects. And yet… there they were: 3D butterflies crawling across gilded satin, caught mid-flight on organza, sliced into denim, scattered over the body as if blown by a breeze. It sounds whimsical, and Zimmermann certainly knows its way around romance, but this collection had a little more bite than that.
For SS27, the Zimmerman sisters drew on the 19th-century scientific illustrations of another pair of creative siblings Harriet and Helena Scott. They transformed the Scott’s detailed studies of butterflies and Australian nature into a contemporary language of prints, appliqué, and laser-cut craftsmanship. It also looks to broader cultural references, from the cinematic work of directors Gillian Armstrong and Kim Gehrig to the atmospheric colour washes of painter Lara Merrett. It was a moving dialogue between naturalism, fashion and a modern sense of femininity.
What I loved most was the physicality of the clothes. Nothing seemed entirely stagnant. Silk was liquid; organza floated out behind the models’ trots. You could almost imagine the clothes breathing themselves.
The prettiness was there too, and undeniably so. Butter yellow satin. Powdery pink. Lilac. Baby blue. But these colours didn’t feel cloyingly sugary. Then came the denim, which was perhaps the collection’s most satisfying surprise. Zimmermann treats it almost like fabric from a couture atelier, cutting flowers into it, pulling it into wave-like flares… It has the familiar toughness of denim, but here it was made to ripple, swing and expose flashes of skin. Its casual-ness disappeared.
There was a wonderful tension running through the collection between things that are hard and soft, matte and glossy, structured and liquid. Tailored satin sets sit alongside cascading silk; softened drill meets lace; sheer organza is layered over silk burnout butterflies. The clothes seem to be constantly contradicting themselves, and that contradiction gives them energy.
I found myself particularly drawn to the pieces where the craftsmanship was almost invisible at first. Ones where a butterfly looks printed until you realise it has been painstakingly cut from the fabric. A denim surface seems ordinary until the light catches the tiny botanical details. The closer you look, the more the clothes revealed themselves.
The butterfly feels like a a useful symbol for Zimmermann at this point in the brand’s lifespan. It’s a house that isn’t really about delicacy. It’s about transformation – the strange, messy, physical process of becoming something else. The spring 2027 collection felt like that. Beautiful, certainly, but not precious. And most certainly, alive.
