Egonlab’s Spring/Summer 2027 men’s show opened with a shirt that was, strictly speaking, more window than garment. Sheer panels of micro-voile, cut on the bias and intersected with exposed seam lines, revealed the torso beneath with the precision of an architectural elevation. The gesture was not new to fashion, but it felt newly earned in the context of menswear, where the boundary between covered and revealed remains more heavily policed than in womenswear.
Creative directors Florentin Glémarec and Kévin Nompeix have been quietly building a vocabulary of masculine sensuality since founding the label in 2019, but this season marked a clear acceleration. The collection leaned into what the Instagram commentary track has taken to calling “coquette” — a term usually applied to feminine presentation but here repurposed for men who dress with deliberate softness. Ribbon ties replaced buttons on tailored trousers. Silk charmeuse shirts fell open to the sternum. Broderie anglaise — that most demure of Victorian embroidery techniques — appeared on the chest panels of otherwise severe black blazers.
The show’s setting, in a basement gallery in the Marais, amplified the collection’s intimacy. Guests sat close enough to see the stitching. The soundtrack, a loop of slowed-down disco mixed with ambient breathing, created a hothouse atmosphere that the clothes met rather than fought. A model in a double-breasted blazer cut entirely from black guipure lace with nothing underneath drew an audible intake of breath from a buyer sitting in the second row — the kind of reaction that Egonlab has learned to cultivate.
Egonlab has always occupied a narrow space between avant-garde and commercial, but this season the commercial end of the spectrum gained real ground. The sheer shirts and lace blazers will find a home at the niche retailers that have supported the brand since its early days, but the broader offering of softly tailored suits, wide-legged trousers, and silk knit polos feels calibrated for the Ssense and Matches customer who discovered Egonlab through a viral runway moment and stayed for the construction quality.
What distinguished this collection from earlier flirtations with transparency was the structural rigour underneath the frisson. Every sheer piece had a counterweight — a heavy wool trouser, a leather boot that climbed to mid-calf, a wide-brimmed hat that cast the face in shadow. The collection argued that softness in menswear requires a frame, either literal or conceptual, to avoid tipping into costume. The broderie anglaise blazer, for instance, was paired with stiff worker’s trousers in heavyweight cotton twill.
