For Spring/Summer 2027, TOGA founder Yasuko Furuta found the starting point for her latest collection during a particularly hot spell in Paris this summer. Staying in an apartment without air conditioning, the Japanese designer began paying attention to how people around her were getting dressed.
Parisian wardrobes became smaller, lighter and considerably more revealing as temperatures climbed. Back home in Tokyo, despite the city’s famously intense summer humidity, Furuta noticed almost the opposite: people continued covering their bodies as a form of protection.
Shown outside on the terrace of Somerset House, TOGA SS27 explored what happens when the urge to cover up meets the desperate need to wear as little as possible. Layers remained everywhere, because this is TOGA after all, but this time they felt lighter, stranger and considerably more exposed.
Trousers and skirts appeared to peel away from the body, opening up to reveal decorative linings underneath. Sheer floral fabrics were tied, twisted and stacked over one another, while tailoring was interrupted by tiny flashes of skin and transparent fabric. Plaids collided and shirts, jackets and skirts were assembled in ways that made it difficult to tell where one garment ended and another began.
A caramel V-neck knit plunged dramatically towards the waist before meeting bright marigold ruffled shorts, while pistachio green was paired with pale yellow tailoring. A cream blazer also came with little more than a flash of electric chartreuse organza underneath. and Furuta played with rose prints, tartans and bursts of saturated colour.
There was plenty of black too, particularly at the beginning and end of the collection, grounding some of the more chaotic combinations. But even the darker looks rarely felt heavy as fabrics shifted, opened and moved around the body, giving everything the sense that it could be adjusted depending on exactly how much clothing you could tolerate that day.
Crystal martini-glass brooches appeared across looks and tinsel-like Lurex added flashes of ridiculousness. Oversized colourful roses exploded across dresses and jumpsuits, too! They were playful additions, but particularly fitting ones given that TOGA turns 30 next year.
As summers become hotter, the question of what we actually wear in them is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Furuta looked at two cities responding to the same problem in completely different ways and found something interesting in the space between them.
