Alice Yu Spring/Summer 2027 at Milan Fashion Week

Alice Yu Spring/Summer 2027 / SS27 at Milan Fashion Week entitled EASTERN NOMADS

Alice Yu SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027 ready-to-wear and couture Collection, With Eastern Nomads, Alice Yu explores what it means to belong without remaining in one place. For Spring/Summer 2027, the designer draws on the nomadic cultures of the East and their relationship with nature, translating migration, rootedness and rebirth into a collection defined by transformation. Migration becomes an act of carrying one’s origins forward. Long before modern borders were drawn, nomadic cultures crossed the Eurasian continent, bringing East and West together through materials, techniques and ideas.

Details of Alice Yu Spring/Summer 2027 / SS27, The flower becomes the collection’s central metaphor, evolving from bud to full bloom and finally to withering. This progression is expressed through lived-in silk, raw linen and untreated cotton, followed by lightweight cotton, chiffon, openwork lace and three-dimensional embroidery, before moving into washed denim, deconstructed knitwear and weathered surfaces. The silhouettes follow the same journey, opening outward at full bloom before returning to softer, more essential forms. Sculptural outerwear is combined with fluid silhouettes, delicate transparencies, layered textures and distressed finishes. The palette moves from clay brown, aged ivory and olive green to alizarin red, saffron yellow, indigo and copper gold, before fading into dusty pink and weathered mineral tones.

Intangible Cultural Heritage, at the heart of Eastern Nomads is Alice Yu’s exploration of Intangible Cultural Heritage, bringing ancient craft techniques into a contemporary fashion context. Beihai Shell Carving is among the collection’s most distinctive elements. Its history can be traced to shell-inlay traditions practised as early as the Han dynasty (202 BC to 220 AD), with the techniques refined over many centuries. Cut, polished and engraved according to their natural colour and veining, the shell fragments are embroidered onto structured outerwear, transforming a technique traditionally associated with furniture and decorative objects into sculptural garments.

Alice Yu SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027 collection also draws on Jian ceramics from Fujian. First developed during the late Tang and Five Dynasties period (880-950CE) and reaching its height during the Song dynasty (960 to 1279 CE), Jian ware represents a tradition spanning nearly a thousand years. Fired at around 1,300°C, its clay and glaze undergo unpredictable transformations that produce distinctive patterns. This process inspires a print applied to sheer, fluid fabric, where deep indigo opens into shifting golden tones that catch the light and recall the transformation of glaze inside the kiln. What travels is not only material, but memory, technique and the will to begin again on unfamiliar ground. Eastern Nomads presents cultural heritage as a living practice, one capable of moving, evolving and being reborn.

ABOUT ALICE YU, Alice Yu is a multi-hyphen designer and entrepreneur whose work operates at the intersection of contemporary fashion, couture practice, and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. Trained at Istituto Marangoni in Milan, she founded ALICEYU ATELIER in 2016 as a specialized embroidery and custom-made workshop, followed by the launch of her eponymous fashion house, ALICE YU, in 2017. Since its inception, the brand has developed a distinctive voice grounded in hand-based techniques, material research, and a rigorous approach to form and construction. Central to her practice is a commitment to safeguarding cultural techniques that are transmitted through practice rather than text—embroidery, metalwork, and porcelain traditions rooted in regional histories and collective memory. Rather than treating heritage as static reference, she repositions these techniques within contemporary design, allowing them to evolve through new contexts, scales, and audiences. Her work spans ready-to-wear, couture, and cross-disciplinary exhibitions, and has been presented at Shanghai Fashion Week as well as within cultural and artistic institutions in China. Alice approaches fashion as a cultural platform: a means to sustain endangered knowledge, create dialogue between East and West, and affirm the relevance of global hand-based practices within today’s international fashion system. www.aliceyumilano.com