According to Dutch trend researcher Edwin van den Hoek, if you want to understand the men’s fashion image for summer 2027, you have to start with the body. Not with the body on the catwalk, but with the real male body. Like the female body, this is increasingly being commented on: it is studied, idealized and polished. This “male gaze” also changes the image of fashion.
Van den Hoek, who has been looking into the future with his own trend office for more than a quarter of a century, describes it as a time when men become physically and figuratively naked. “Men’s bodies are being screwed over"he says. “Not just in the fitness and nutritional supplements industry, which is now a billion-dollar business, but also in the cultural battle over masculinity, femininity and everything in between.” He observes the pursuit of a certain ideal of beauty – and at the same time the resistance to discrimination based on age or appearance. “It is a paradoxical movement based on a hyperawareness of the self and the search for authenticity.”
As usual in his presentations, van den Hoek divides the new men’s fashion into four themes. The difficulties in the world also play a role as an invisible fifth element. Fashion can only approach this obediently, says van den Hoek. “Fashion – like every form of culture – has to constantly readjust time.”
Authenticity: reassessing the everyday
In the summer of 2027, there is a notable shift toward domesticity, tradition, care, and family. The ideal of the young family is back, but with the (full-time) father in the foreground. The trend researcher notices this in terms like “Baking Bliss” that appear in lifestyle content. Home life becomes a recognizable aesthetic.
He sees young well-known men on social media disappearing behind the kitchen counter – personalities like Sepp van Dijk, Super Dushi and Douwe Bob. “The domestic space is being redefined with a softer masculinity,” says van den Hoek.
This ‘country life’ is taken up literally in fashion: models walked down the catwalk with a bunch of leeks and a prairie dog. The male “tradwife” also takes shape through chunky knitwear. There are also the resurrected pleated trousers, denim suits with tucked-in shirts, linen shirts with tea towel checks and a color palette that refers more to the field than to the concrete office garden.
A jump back in time? Van den Hoek had young students explain to him that it felt different for them. “Your past is not ours"he learned. The past is not replicated, it is retold and therefore experienced differently.
Innovation: fusion of digital and material
From rural life to the virtual world is no longer a hard transition; they are two realities existing at the same time. Even front-row guests in Paris watch the show not with their eyes, but through their screens.
This digital world shapes the material aspects of fashion. Van den Hoek sees material compositions inspired by hyperbolic fantasy: creative jacquards and knitwear reminiscent of glass. Color gradients that don’t seem to come from nature, but from rendering software. Oily coatings on synthetic fabrics. Leather with shine. Futuristic sunglasses modeled in geometric lines around the head. Transparent materials are draped on top of each other like layers of air – see, for example, the bomber jackets at System and Lacoste.
Amid all this spectacular tech material, van den Hoek also advocates sobriety. Functional basic items are becoming more important: a solid hiking jacket, robust bags, clothing that plays a real role in everyday life. In a world full of excess, simplicity and obvious function are gaining value again.
Unconventional: historical legacy is shifting
Between the new domestication and high-tech there is a third trend: historical masculinity brought creatively into the present. Not like we know from costume dramas. Van den Hoek refers to elements from paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries: the tie is tied thinner and softer, trousers can be slightly baggy, lace flowers and embroidery belong back in the men’s wardrobe – but on tight-fitting shirts so that the overall look remains modern.
This effect can also be achieved with draping and cut elements that are deliberately shifted with a distorting effect. Designers are also experimenting with re-assemblies. This has been the specialty of the Korean label Sacai for years: collages of old and new, traditional and contemporary.
The result is not a revival, but a new kind of elegance that can be quite commercial. Van den Hoek cites historical wallpaper motifs and ethnic prints as examples. These are subtle refinements when hidden in the lining of a sleek tuxedo.
Handmade: Imperfection allows fashion to breathe
It is clear that AI is becoming more influential in design processes. Very good, van den Hoek thinks, provided that aesthetics do not become dependent on such techniques. “AI can’t do this creative piece at all." That’s why the need for craftsmanship is growing in fashion: embroidery, tailoring, mending and the joy of repairing a broken piece of clothing yourself or having it repaired instead of replacing it with something new.
Nature also belongs in this paradigm, but not in a dusty way. Van den Hoek names fabrics and types of leather that are dyed with natural ingredients. This means that the color layer is not opaque, but rather layered like a camouflage print. “It creates an interesting, faded, vintage effect.” The color palette shifts towards cognac and chestnut brown – tones that he describes as essential for all product groups.
Fashion between glamor pool and farm
SS27 will therefore not be a uniform summer. The trend image moves between shiny tech and woolen knitwear from the country. Between iridescent bombers and pajamas that can be worn as evening wear. Between country life – whether imitated in the city with TikTok videos or not – and the virtual cloud, for which big tech companies are already setting up their data centers in space. Between Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher’s sports jacket, which Berghaus is reviving as a “collector’s item”, and a catwalk model with a bunch of leeks.
So the summer won’t be completely “naked” – even if van den Hoek predicts lots of swimming trunks and bare skin. “Above all, don’t underestimate what’s happening to the man underneath all that clothing."
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