What happens when one of fashion’s most familiar materials is pulled from its everyday context and set against centuries of history? For Spring/Summer 2027, Acne Studios answers with Denim Hystoria, a collection where Renaissance imagery, courtly dress, New Romanticism, and worn-in Americana collide.
The result is deliberately difficult to place in time. Historical references are stripped of formality and pushed through Acne Studios' distinctly irreverent lens, transforming denim into something less familiar—at once romantic, weathered, theatrical, and strangely futuristic.

“Denim becomes a canvas that moves through time,” creative director Jonny Johansson says of the collection. That idea provides the foundation for a wardrobe built around contradiction: preciousness against toughness, historical dress against contemporary sportswear, and elaborate silhouettes against pieces that feel effortlessly lived-in.
The collection opens in a world of melting memories. Traditional carpets by Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed form the backdrop, their familiar patterns dissolving and distorting. Ahmed’s practice centers on disrupting traditional Azerbaijani carpet imagery and placing it in contemporary contexts, making his work a fitting visual counterpart to Acne Studios’ own collision of tradition and transformation.

On the runway, historical dress becomes deliberately weathered. Technical taffeta tops meet twisted miniskirts in periwinkle and orchid, while leather biker pants, jeans, and a grand faded-brocade skirt shift the collection between delicacy and grit. Full leather looks carry the appearance of age and exposure, as though the clothes themselves have traveled through decades before arriving in the present. A pea coat is chopped and cropped, a morning coat arrives with singed edges, and butter-yellow leather transforms traditional britches into capris.

Denim becomes the collection’s most literal meeting point between past and present. Rather than functioning simply as a wardrobe staple, it is treated almost like an archival surface. Torn fragments of Renaissance paintings appear across denim, while lacquered floral treatments and faded, porcelain-like blooms introduce the delicacy of antique ceramics. Elsewhere, feminine smocked silhouettes and high collars recall old-master portraiture, bringing an almost aristocratic sensibility to a material traditionally associated with utility and youth culture.

That juxtaposition is central to Denim Hystoria. A shimmering full-length trench and black redingote bring formal tailoring into the collection, but those conventions are continuously broken apart and reinterpreted. The clothes flirt with grandeur without becoming precious. Instead, they retain the looseness and irreverence that Johansson describes as fundamental to Acne Studios: a willingness to play without pretending.
The accessories continue the historical conversation. The Camero bag returns in washed leather, with a webbed strap and versions finished with buckles reminiscent of Renaissance picture frames. A softly structured Musubi introduces a foldover front and narrower straps, while brooches and jewelry draw on historical portraits, as though the wearer is examining a tiny painted face through a magnifying lens.
Shoes push the collection even further into its uncanny territory. Colorful satin court shoes are given teardrop heels, elongated Western boots feature serpent-intarsia patchwork, and sandals are exaggerated with ornate buckles. Satin slippers lace up along the sides, while metallic square-toed mules offer a distinctly futuristic conclusion to the collection’s historical references.

The entire proposition has a cinematic quality, reinforced by a soundtrack featuring an extract from Adam and the Ants’ “Prince Charming.” The song's New Romantic rakishness becomes another loose reference point for a collection fascinated by characters, costumes, and the possibility of inhabiting another era without ever fully belonging to it.
That is ultimately what makes Denim Hystoria feel Acne Studios distinctly. The collection does not attempt to faithfully recreate the past. Instead, it lets history become distorted—paintings tear, leather ages, carpets melt, tailoring burns at the edges, and familiar denim becomes an unexpected canvas for centuries-old imagery.
Johansson describes the collection as “fresh, salty and youthful,” a phrase that captures its strange balance. Something romantic lingers, but never overly polished; historical, but never nostalgic; theatrical, but never entirely removed from everyday life.
In Acne Studios’ SS27 world, the past is not preserved. It is worn down, remixed, distorted, and made new again. Classical archetypes become untethered, drifting into an unfamiliar landscape where denim can look as precious as an old painting—and history can feel entirely contemporary.

Article by Emma Green, Assistant to Editor-In-Chief, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Daniel Lopez, Art Director, PhotoBook Magazine
*Images Courtesy of Acne Studios

Acne Studios Spring/Sumer 2027 Turns Denim Into a Study in Time