Jennifer Lopez sat front row for Stella McCartney’s rainy spring/summer 2027 show at Paris Fashion Week.
It was apt weather for the en plein air show, which had the theme “under the sea”.
The 57-year-old US singer and actor arrived wearing a faux-fur shawl over the British designer’s layered Sable midi dress and a black veil, sitting with an umbrella front row.
After horses trotted alongside models at McCartney’s autumn/winter show earlier this year, the lifelong animal rights campaigner turned her attention from land to sea.
The collection explored marine life and the fashion industry’s relationship with animals.
Ahead of the show, McCartney shared a film featuring marine biologist and oceanographer Sylvia Earle, who said the collection invited viewers “beneath the blue into a world where humans are not above nature but immersed within the systems”.
As models stepped out in the drizzle and onto the outdoor white runway surrounded by greenery, PJ Harvey’s Down By The Water played.
McCartney’s familiar tailoring was there from the outset. Peplums, heavily structured blazers and oversized shirts all featured, although this time they had a louche quality as the fabric rippled, swelled and floated around the models.
The suiting nodded to her tutelage under the late Savile Row maestro Edward Sexton.
A white trouser suit came with a drawstring pulled through the waist of its oversized blazer, while a sheer white shirt was cinched loosely into billowing wide-leg trousers.
Drawstrings appeared throughout, lending technical waterproof details to otherwise office-ready clothing.
It was one of the collection’s clearest links to its watery theme, without resorting to anything quite as literal as a wetsuit.
The 2010s peplum trend returned last season and certainly shows no signs of disappearing. Here it appeared inflated around the hips of dresses and tops, or was created simply by pulling a drawstring through an oversized jacket.
Rather than the stiff, sculpted peplums of its last fashion heyday, McCartney’s versions on the hip looked soft and buoyant.
The bandeau, another trend of the past decade, seems to be making its revival.
Skinny bandeau tops were worn beneath oversized suits, shirts plunged towards the waist, and transparent layers revealed the underwear underneath.
One chocolate-brown suit was worn open over a tiny bandeau, leaving the model’s midriff completely bare, while another ruffled bandeau was paired with low-slung leggings. It continued the noticeable SS27 trend of underwear as outerwear.
McCartney pushed the idea further with bodysuits borrowing details from trench coats, and tiny shorts resembling briefs.
Low-rise jeans were another retro style point, including cut-out denim decorated with a glittering wave-like embellishment.
This wave motif appeared on more subtle looks, such as Karlie Kloss’s scoop-neck mini dress.
The 34-year-old model walked in a dress with small curling wave motifs climbing over one shoulder and continuing around its abbreviated hem.
The motif resurfaced throughout the collection, sometimes as ruffles that curled around necklines and skirts, and elsewhere as sculptural fabric resembling sea foam.
A bright blue bandeau was almost entirely engulfed by rippling folds, worn with narrow black trousers and an oversized bag.
Accessories also took on the aquatic theme.
The Appaloosa bag, introduced last season, returned in an imitation snakeskin finish – in keeping with McCartney’s refusal to use animal leather or fur.
Transparent versions of the sculptural Ryder bag resembled clear water, while the designer’s chain-trimmed Falabella also made its customary appearance.
In the evening wear section, the collection became softer, with draped gowns gathered and twisted around the body, recalling the fluid jersey dresses of French couturier Madame Grès, before falling in long columns towards the floor.
McCartney has experimented with the contrast between drapery and more sculpted construction before, including in her spring/summer 2026 collection, and here the two ideas often occupied the same dress.
Fabric was pulled taut across one part of the body before spilling loosely across another, with the collection’s curling wave motif trimming necklines and hems.
Australian model Miranda Kerr walked in one of the clearest examples, wearing a pale seafoam gown knotted around the waist, exposing strips of skin at either side before it fell into a long, softly gathered skirt.
This summed up a collection built around opposites.
Masculine suits sat alongside barely-there bandeaus; practical drawstrings interrupted formal tailoring; rigid shoulders were followed by liquid drapery.
McCartney founded her label in 2001 after studying at Central Saint Martins and succeeding Karl Lagerfeld at Chloé.
She presented her first eponymous ready-to-wear collection in Paris in October that year, meaning this season marks exactly 25 years since her debut.
The anniversary has prompted what McCartney calls her “Stella-bration” season, but the designer resisted turning the runway into a straightforward retrospective.
Instead, many of her long-established signatures were present – oversized tailoring, lingerie, sporty details, peplums and fluid evening dresses – filtered through the marine theme.
At the end, McCartney emerged in jeans, a white T-shirt and her quintessential baggy blazer, giving the audience a quick thumbs-up and a thank you before disappearing backstage.
Twenty-five years after her first Paris show, McCartney proved her signatures can still move with the tide.
