Susan Fang SS27 asked London to walk on water—literally. On 18 September 2026, the London- and Shanghai-based designer staged what TheIndustry.fashion and Fang herself (via Press Association remarks republished in surrounding coverage) describe as the first fashion show at the Barbican Centre’s Lakeside: reflective silver balloon towers, models crossing stepping stones, Brutalist concrete framing a collection tuned to romance, illusion, and craft meeting machines. In a week defined by heritage-house headlines, Susan Fang SS27 is the culture story—opera research, porcelain repair logic, neon 3D lace, and a Crocs Echo Blume collaboration blooming in metallic fractal flowers.

WWD’s Lily Templeton filed the collection as “A Floating World,” arguing that technology kept in human hands can still yield wonders. Drapers logged pearls, petals, porcelain, elaborate braids, and 3D-printed flowers and shoes in sour green, blue, and electric pink. Together they sketch a designer answering the AI-anxiety era with hyper-femininity that is coded, printed, and hand-finished—not generated and left alone.

Susan Fang SS27: the M. Butterfly brief

Fang is designing costumes for a new M. Butterfly production at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels opening April 2027, TheIndustry.fashion reports, and that research bled into Chinese ceramics, clothing, and accessories. WWD specifies the David Cronenberg 1993 film retelling of the Puccini-rooted story—romantic drama tangled with spy thriller—as the imaginative key. Fang opened, per WWD, in a red dress heavy with fluttering floral appliqués, using the colour to channel the “really strong seduction, strong lock” between the film’s central characters, then drifted into trademark soft pastels and porcelain blues interrupted by neon.

Blue-and-white floral patterns, transparent layers, and porcelain-inspired details walked the lake edge. TheIndustry.fashion highlights a white mini dress covered in delicate cobalt-blue flowers and an organza gown layered with pale blue and white three-dimensional flowers. Broken porcelain was reworked into accessories; jade repaired with gold became multicoloured flower jewellery—kintsugi logic as romantic metaphor. WWD adds a qipao built from long beaded strands (an early-Fang nod), hand-painted broken-porcelain elements, and petal-like earrings developed with a Beijing-based jade master.

Barbican Lakeside as cultural set design

Venue is not neutral here. Fang told the Press Association, as carried in Irish and wire coverage surrounding the show, that showing lakeside was a dream “because no one ever did that before,” and that M. Butterfly’s Sixties setting rhymed with the Barbican’s Sixties design—an old/new match. TheIndustry.fashion describes large towers of reflective silver balloons and stepping stones over water. For culture editors, that is the lede beneath the clothes: London’s Brutalist civic monument temporarily rewritten as a floating runway.

Drapers situates the show inside a denser LFW SS27 calendar and flags Fang’s craft-versus-technology collision as an industry-wide tension “as artistry competes with AI.” Transparent resin bubbles assembled into an antique-looking crystal headdress—another Drapers detail—extended the porcelain-opera fantasy into headwear.

3D printing without abandoning the hand

Backstage, TheIndustry.fashion notes a 3D printer sitting beside neon shoe components—the machine as cast member. On runway, printed elements layered with embroidery and embellishment rather than replacing them. Fang is quoted: “Usually there’s really bright colour in 3D printing, and we thought it’ll be so fun because it’s actually quite hard to dye in such bright colour… We drew these porcelain flower patterns as lace, but then we could also print them in super-neon colour. So it’s a balance of maybe the past and the present.”

WWD credits ongoing development with husband Orelio De Jonghe on 3D-printed elements and ASCII art prints. A pale organza dress of four sheer layers carried blue cutout florals stitched through all levels so blooms seemed to float between fabric and skin. Neon 3D-printed lace firmed up transparent blouses, shorts, and a dress. Pixelated flip-flops read as a simple thong from the front and a geometric sweep from the side—optical fashion as culture joke and design R&D.

Crocs Echo Blume: collab as spring 2027 signal

Both TheIndustry.fashion and WWD confirm the Crocs collaboration: Echo Blume footwear unveiled at the show ahead of a global launch in spring 2027, decorated with metallic flowers from Fang’s signature flower system using fractal formulas found in nature. WWD describes the style “smothered in 3D wildflower clusters.” For culture and business desks alike, that is the crossover object—an accessible silhouette carrying an indie London-Shanghai couture grammar into mass channels next spring.

Beauty and hair as dual thesis

Lead hairstylist Anna Cofone, per TheIndustry.fashion, built rigid high-shine sections beside braids, flyaways, and soft tendrils—structure versus romance in the same head, mirroring garment logic. File it beside the clothes when commissioning beauty coverage: the hair is not an afterthought; it is the thesis in keratin form.

How to watch the show if you missed Lakeside

• Three image saves: cobalt porcelain mini; neon lace over sheer; Echo Blume metallic flower clog.

• Listen for: past/present language in Fang’s print-versus-dye quote.

• Culture frame: opera costume research → RTW; Brutalist civic space → temporary dream set.

• Commerce frame: Crocs global spring 2027 launch clock starts now.

• Do not invent: no fabricated celebrity front-row feuds; stick to sourced venue, collaborators, and quotes.

Why Susan Fang SS27 belongs in the CULTURE slot

Runway coverage alone under-sells the piece. Susan Fang SS27 is about how a designer stages love-as-illusion against civic architecture, how porcelain repair ethics become jewellery, how a backstage printer becomes part of the romantic myth instead of its enemy, and how a Crocs collab can carry fractal flower maths into the real world next spring. WWD’s closing line lands cleanly: in a moment of AI fever, Fang reminds us that technology guided by human hands can still make wonders.

London still has Burberry’s Monday finale on the grid. Until then, keep Susan Fang SS27 filed under the week’s essential culture texts—Lakeside footsteps, neon lace, and Echo Blume petals pointed at spring 2027.