Pillings Spring/Summer 2027 / SS27 at Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo

Selected as a LVMHPRIZE Semifinalist in 2025, pillings has come to garner attention from a global audience. Pillings SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027, under the theme “Landscapes2,” the brand continued its focus from the previous season on the ordinary daily lives of Japanese people. Rather than telling a clear story from a first-person perspective, the brand captures everyday life from multiple angles, using clothing to depict landscapes that exist between reality, memory, and fantasy.

A key concept essential to understanding pillings’ creations is “discrepancy.” The flowers adorning a cardigan were rendered as if dye had bled through the knit layer beneath, while balloon-like silhouettes appeared slightly sagging. By twisting, pinching, or fraying simple items like shirts and cardigans, the brand brought to light the subtle sense of dissonance that occasionally lurks within the unremarkable everyday.

Everyday items such as a knit sweater began to straddle the line between everyday life and fantasy as fluffy fibers were arranged like a bouquet. The blue-and-white knit, which resembled tie-dye, featured a pattern created not by dyeing but through intarsia knitting—a knitting technique that pillings is renowned for.

The reason for choosing the Asahi Shimbun headquarters as the venue was that the newspaper’s serialized column “Koe” (Voice) which designer Murakami describes as “a place where I can connect with society”—perfectly aligned with this season’s theme. It was the middle of the week, a hectic Wednesday evening. And as many people were going about their slightly lethargic daily lives, this unique space just so happened to appear in the office building, blurring the line between reality and fantasy.

All images Pillings SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027 by Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo.