Susan Fang SS27: Air-Illusion Brings Love, Technology and Optical Fantasy to London Fashion Week

At London Fashion Week, SUSAN FANG Spring/Summer 2027 transformed the Barbican Centre Lakeside into a dreamscape of flowers, fractured porcelain, transparent silhouettes and optical illusions. Titled AIR-ILLUSION, the collection explored the fragile space between fantasy and reality, taking inspiration from M. Butterfly and the imagined worlds people construct around love.

Presented on 18 September 2026 at the Barbican Centre Lakeside, AIR-ILLUSION considered a deceptively simple question: can love remain real when the image we have fallen in love with is an illusion?

For Susan Fang, the answer lies in the emotional complexity of M. Butterfly. Inspired by real events, the story follows French diplomat René Gallimard and Chinese opera singer Song Liling across two decades, as Gallimard projects his fantasy of an ideal woman onto Song before discovering the truth. Rather than focusing solely on the deception, Fang finds beauty in the relationship itself — in the possibility that although the fantasy was constructed, the feelings were genuine.

Throughout AIR-ILLUSION, Susan Fang turns perception into a material.

The collection experiments with geometry, colour, transparency and perspective, drawing references from traditional Chinese porcelain, ceramics and prints. Broken porcelain becomes a recurring metaphor: something fractured does not necessarily lose its beauty; instead, the fracture can become part of the object itself.

The idea appears through dresses and abstract qipao silhouettes embroidered between layers of clear organza. Feathers and colour seem to float within the transparent fabric, creating what Fang describes as an almost ghostly air-painting effect.

The qipao is similarly transformed. Reimagined as a transparent bubble qipao, its exaggerated silhouette reflects Song Liling’s fabricated femininity and the idealised woman Gallimard believes he sees. A bubble Beijing opera headpiece, decorated with resin lilies, extends the fantasy into something almost dreamlike — purity held inside a transparent world.

Elsewhere, Fang’s signature air-flower pieces take their palette from traditional Chinese porcelain, while crochet knitwear references the familiar blue-and-white language of Chinese ceramics, softened with mint and peach.

One of the collection’s most intriguing details appears in its prints.

Hand-drawn motifs inspired by Chinese porcelain painting merge with a digitally constructed garden. From a distance, the prints resemble an intricate botanical landscape; viewed more closely, the garden resolves into ASCII characters — letters and numbers embedded within the image.

The print was created by Orelio De Jonghe, Susan Fang’s husband and Head of 3D Design and Accessories, who previously worked as an industrial designer at Dyson.

De Jonghe’s role extends across the collection, helping bridge Fang’s interest in natural systems with digital design and fabrication.

This relationship between the organic and the technological is central to the Susan Fang universe. Her Air-Puzzle technique interlocks geometric shapes and colours like a three-dimensional jigsaw, creating abstract planes that shift depending on the viewer’s position.

Even broken materials are given another life. Repainted fragments of porcelain become accessories and embellishments, while broken jade is rejoined with gold to create multicoloured jade flower jewellery.

Rather than concealing the fracture, AIR-ILLUSION turns it into decoration.

Technology and nature continue into the footwear.

For SS27, Crocs and SUSAN FANG introduce Echo Blume, marking the worldwide debut of Crocs’ new Echo Lume silhouette ahead of its global launch in Spring 2027.

The collaboration translates Fang’s fascination with natural systems into a futuristic garden of metallic flowers. Built around the fluidity of water and the idea of the Flow of Life, the Echo Lume silhouette is covered with clusters of wildflowers generated through Susan Fang’s signature flower system.

Developed using fractal formulas found in nature and translated through 3D animation, the flowers create the impression of a miniature three-dimensional garden growing across the footwear.

Echo Blume arrives in three colourways: Black, with metallic wildflowers over a black flower-system covering; Pink, with pink metallic flowers over a transparent covering; and White, featuring silver metallic flowers against a geometric surface with a prismatic rainbow finish.

The collaboration also carries a more emotional message. Presented as a blessing for people navigating a period of constant change, the wildflowers become symbols of resilience, individuality and the ability to grow into one’s original self.

Technology becomes another form of craftsmanship through Bambu Lab, the season’s official technology partner.

Susan Fang created neon lace inspired by flowers found in traditional porcelain painting, translating the motifs into 3D-printed pieces using Bambu Lab technology.

A sculptural pixelated flip-flop plays with the same theme of perception: recognisable from one particular angle, distorted from another. The H2D printer’s dual-nozzle system enabled the creation of footwear in two materials, while the A2L’s cutting and drawing modules supported the precision required for Fang’s handcrafted Air-Puzzle techniques.

Again, the collection refuses to position technology and handcraft as opposites. Instead, SS27 treats 3D printing, digital design, natural systems and traditional craft as parts of the same creative ecosystem.

Alongside the technological collaborations, Beijing-based Jade Master Li Ke, who has worked with jade for more than two decades, created a series of intricate jade earrings for the collection.

His involvement also brings a sense of urgency to the conversation around traditional craft. As jade craftsmanship becomes increasingly rare and fewer young people enter the discipline, Fang’s decision to incorporate Li Ke’s work becomes part of a wider dialogue between heritage and the future.

The setting amplified the collection’s central themes.

AIR-ILLUSION marked the first fashion show staged at Barbican Centre Lakeside, placing Fang’s fluid, transparent world against the site’s distinctive brutalist architecture.

The location also carries a historical connection to M. Butterfly. The Barbican scheme was agreed in 1959, with construction continuing throughout the 1960s — the same decade in which the story begins.

For the show set, XL+ Architects introduced silver floating circles drifting through the space, reflecting both their surroundings and the audience itself. The installation turned the architecture into another surface of perception.

Even the invitation participated in the illusion. Viewed from one angle, it reveals the SUSAN FANG four-leaf clover monogram; rotated, the same graphic resolves into a heart. Produced using a Bambu Lab 3D printer, the object became a miniature introduction to the collection’s central idea: what we see depends on how we look.

The atmosphere continued through scent, with Penhaligon’s Bold Blend selected as the show’s fragrance. Described as a potion capable of playing either a female or male role, the fragrance further blurred the boundaries between identity, fantasy and transformation. Small potion bubble bags appeared within the styling as subtle references to the mystery surrounding the two characters of M. Butterfly.

The connection to M. Butterfly extends beyond the runway.

Alongside AIR-ILLUSION, SUSAN FANG has designed costumes for a new production of the opera at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, opening in April 2027.

It is a fitting continuation of the collection’s exploration of constructed identity. If fashion can create a character through silhouette, material and ornament, opera can extend that transformation into voice, performance and narrative.

AIR-ILLUSION ultimately exists in that same space — between what is performed and what is felt, between the person and the image, between nature and technology.

Susan Fang’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection doesn’t simply ask us to question what is real. Instead, it asks whether reality is always the most important part of the story.

Sometimes, the illusion is where the emotion lives.

Creative Direction: Susan Fang & Orelio De Jonghe
Show Set Design: XL+ Architects
Show & Lighting Director: Amy Chan
Stylist: Victoire Simmoney
Casting Director: Emilie Lou Åström
Makeup: Erin Green
Hair: Anna Cofone using Authentic Beauty Concept
Front of House Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans
Videography: Craig Maddison
Backstage Photography: Otto Masters, Jess Segal, Yana Kasa
PR: PURPLE
Venue: Barbican Centre Lakeside Terrace

Collaborators & Sponsors:
Crocs — Echo Blume collaboration and worldwide debut of the new Echo Lume silhouette
Bambu Lab — Official Technology Partner; 3D-printed footwear, runway gifts and invitation production
Penhaligon’s — Show fragrance, Bold Blend
Authentic Beauty Concept — Hair creative team and products
Jade Master Li Ke, Beijing — Jade earrings
La Monnaie / De Munt, Brussels — M. Butterfly opera costumes, opening April 2027

Print: Orelio De Jonghe
Flower System / Technology-led Design: Orelio De Jonghe

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