John Richmond returned to London Fashion Week on September 19 with his Spring/Summer 2027 collection, “WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT.” The co-ed runway was scheduled for noon on Saturday as part of London Fashion Week’s September 17–21 program, with both menswear and womenswear represented.
For menswear, the message is unmistakably Richmond: rock ’n’ roll tailoring, nocturnal sensuality and a deliberate tension between dressed-up elegance and clothes that look as though they could walk straight off the runway and into a club.
WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT
The title itself provides a useful key to the collection. Ahead of the show, John Richmond described the Spring/Summer 2027 presentation as WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT, bringing the house’s recognizable creative identity back to London
The phrase feels particularly appropriate after looking through the clothes. White and black dominate much of the menswear, but Richmond repeatedly interrupts that monochrome conversation with icy turquoise, metallic silver and flashes of skin.
This is not minimalism in the conventional sense. It is Richmond stripping rock-star dressing down to its essentials.
The Menswear: Tailoring After Midnight
Looking closely at the runway images, tailoring provides the backbone of the men’s collection, but very little of it behaves like conventional suiting.
Jackets are narrow and elongated or deliberately relaxed. Some are worn over bare chests. Others appear with fluid shorts rather than trousers. One particularly strong gray suit combines a loosely structured jacket with long, knee-skimming tailored shorts and a plunging neckline, transforming traditional menswear proportions into something younger and more sensual.
Then comes the white tailoring.
A white jacket and matching trousers are shown completely shirtless, accessorized with oversized black sunglasses and a slim black belt. Another white tailored jacket is layered over an almost transparent lace lower half. The contrast is pure Richmond: formal clothing colliding with exposure.
It gives the collection a feeling somewhere between backstage dressing room, nightclub and decadent summer evening.
Sheer Is the New Shirt
Perhaps the clearest menswear story visible in the collection is transparency.
Richmond uses sheer black fabrics almost like conventional shirting. A translucent black top is tucked into voluminous black shorts and cinched by a broad, glossy waistband. Another model wears an intricately open-worked black shirt with pale turquoise trousers.
Elsewhere, an almost completely transparent black shirt sits underneath a satin bomber and tailored shorts.
Rather than presenting sheer fabric as a novelty, Richmond incorporates it into recognizable masculine wardrobes: bomber jackets, suits, trousers and shorts.
That distinction matters. The clothes aren’t simply about showing skin. They’re about changing what constitutes a men’s shirt.
The Return of the Rock Star
Of course, this is John Richmond.
The designer’s relationship with music culture is fundamental to the brand; Richmond’s own biography cites David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Roxy Music, punk and New Wave among the influences that formed his design DNA.
Spring 2027 continues that lineage without turning into a costume retrospective.
There are leather trousers. Black sunglasses. Long scarves hanging loosely around bare torsos. Metallic fabrics. Deeply plunging jackets. A sleeveless cream top opens almost completely down the front over glossy black trousers, while another model appears bare-chested in a tiny black jacket and distressed white jeans.
Even the grooming supports the attitude: elongated hair, severe sunglasses and flashes of pink and orange give several models the appearance of musicians rather than conventional runway boys.
But underneath all that attitude is tailoring.
That’s what prevents the collection from becoming nostalgia.
Black, White — and Electric Blue
The screenshot also reveals a tightly controlled men’s palette.
Black carries most of the collection: sheer shirts, bombers, leather, oversized trousers and abbreviated shorts. White acts as its counterpoint through jackets, suits and distressed denim.
Then Richmond drops in an almost electric ice-blue.
A pale turquoise suit worn against a bare chest is one of the strongest examples. The same color appears on trousers paired with an open-work black top. Against the predominantly monochromatic runway, the shade feels almost artificial — like colored light hitting a dark dance floor.
Silver performs a similar function. Metallic trousers underneath a white biker-style jacket give one look a harder, futuristic finish without abandoning Richmond’s glam-rock vocabulary.
Shorts Become Part of the Suit
One of the more interesting propositions for Spring 2027 is Richmond’s treatment of shorts.
They aren’t relegated to casual summer dressing.
Instead, long tailored shorts repeatedly replace trousers beneath jackets and bombers. Some fall near the knee; others are much shorter. The styling makes them feel less like resort wear and more like an extension of evening tailoring.
That proportion works particularly well with the oversized or softly constructed jackets above them. The exposed leg breaks up the darkness and heaviness of black tailoring while preserving its sharpness.
It’s an easy detail to overlook, but it may be one of the collection’s most wearable ideas.
Sexy Without Losing the Clothes
There is a considerable amount of exposed male skin here, but the sexuality largely comes through styling and proportion.
Bare chests replace shirts. Necklines plunge. Transparent fabrics expose the torso beneath them. Jackets appear deliberately unfinished or barely fastened.
Yet the garments remain identifiable: suits, bombers, leather trousers, tailored shorts and jackets.
That’s important because Richmond isn’t abandoning menswear to create spectacle. He is taking familiar pieces and removing the layers that traditionally make them respectable.
The result is menswear dressed for 2 a.m. rather than 2 p.m.
And that feels very John Richmond.
John Richmond’s Spring 2027 Man
Looking across the menswear in the presentation, there isn’t a single uniform.
He can wear a turquoise suit with nothing underneath.
He can choose a sheer black shirt and oversized shorts.
He can put a white jacket over his bare torso, or combine leather trousers with an almost completely open sleeveless top.
What connects those men is attitude rather than dress code.
That has long been Richmond’s territory, and WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT demonstrates how effectively the designer can still translate the language of rock music, nightlife and sexual confidence into contemporary menswear.
At London Fashion Week, surrounded by an industry continually reconsidering what men’s tailoring should look like, Richmond’s answer for Spring 2027 is wonderfully uncomplicated:
Keep the jacket.
Lose the shirt.
Turn up the volume.
The complete Spring 2027 runway collection can also be viewed through The Impression.
