Longchamp Spring/Summer ’27 Takes Us Through The French New Wave

Longchamp’s New Wave

The Longchamp Spring/Summer 2027 collection is structured like a day in the city. Creative director Sophie Delafontaine takes the New Wave and arthouse cinema as her starting point. Consequently, each look reads as a scene, with the Parisienne as its lead. We caught up with the creative director during Paris Fashion Week to ask her more about this exciting collection, and how it fits effortlessly into our Malaysian weather.

From striped shirting to lilac gloves, the Longchamp Spring/Summer ’27 collection plots a Parisian day in scenes, each with its own wardrobe.

Sophie Delafontaine’s starting point for Longchamp Spring/Summer ’27 was a film set, though not a fantasy one. It was the Paris of the 1950s and ’60s, when the New Wave put women at the centre of the frame. Think Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) or Corinne Marchand in Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962). “I love this period because the ladies were very elegant, feminine, with a lot of character,” says the creative director. “And their accessories were really important to their outfits.”

That second observation runs through the collection. As depicted in those New Wave films, the Paris Delafontaine has in mind is not a soft-focus one. “It wasn’t a dreamy Paris. It was a realistic Paris,” she says. Yes, much like the New Wave heroines, her women are elegant and spontaneous, but not romantic. They sit on café terraces with a coffee and a cigarette, comfortable in their own company. “It was a moment where they started to be more confident and powerful, and that’s exactly what I am trying to express in this collection.”

The clothes keep that confidence plain. Silhouettes are simple and graphic, built on neutrals, then adjusted by a single detail. “It can be the belt, the shoes, the bags, of course, or just the lipstick,” Delafontaine says. The result is a very simple and effortless silhouette with a little character added.

Colour is where she usually begins, and this season the palette is neutral with pastel touches. Grey, cognac, khaki, beige, black and white form the base. Three colour families sit on top: lilac, pinks that range from misty to blush, and greens in wasabi, aniseed and spring shades. Lilac appears on gloves, a long column dress and a pair of lace-up shoes, each placed to lift an otherwise restrained outfit.

The wardrobe moves through the day. Mornings call for stripes borrowed from men’s shirting, cotton poplin, linen and a green tweed flecked with pink and yellow. A shift dress is paired with a neat leather jacket, and a crepe suit takes on the softness of tweed.

Evenings bring the “Jolie Madame” look: a dress worn with a tailored leather blazer and retro leather gloves. Three signature jackets, the Atelier, the Kimono and the Safari, are reworked in the season’s colours and materials to tie the looks together.

Then there are the bags. Le Joli is new this season, a small square bag with rounded edges, dressed in embossed leather made to look like ostrich, with a Longchamp medal tucked slightly out of sight. It is the piece Delafontaine would keep for herself. “Very feminine, very elegant but also with a lot of character,” she repeats. The Roseau has been reworked too. She wanted structure and softness in the same bag, which meant adjusting both the construction and the leather. “It’s soft, but it also keeps the shape,” she explains. “It’s always this balance that is hard to find.”

The collection also has to travel. Delafontaine says she designs for a spirit rather than a nationality, and layering is how that works in practice. A jacket worn over a heavy sweater in a Paris winter can sit over a T-shirt or blouse in Malaysia. But she is aware of the local climate indoors, too. “In Malaysia, it’s hot outside, but it’s so cold inside that you can even wear the sweater!” she says, laughing. “It makes my job easier.”

What holds everything together is Delafontaine’s view of what clothes are for. “An outfit or accessories are the best companions,” she says. “They are here to help women be confident and to empower them.”

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