AVVENN unveiled its Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Sanctuary, at Shanghai Fashion Week. The contemporary house has built its identity on what it calls the Art of Balance, a fusion of Eastern heritage and Western modernity, and this season it turned that idea inward. The starting question, in the brand’s own framing, was where energy actually comes from. “For AVVENN, energy begins with self-acceptance,” the collection notes read, and Sanctuary follows from that premise: the idea that each of us can cultivate a quiet refuge of our own.
The design team drew on the ancient murals of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang and the long tradition of devotional offerings tied to them. What the collection takes from those caves is less their imagery than their condition: the weathered surfaces, peeling layers and signs of erosion left by more than a thousand years. That reading of time becomes a design language. Knitwear is treated to suggest the soft pilling of a garment worn for years. Denim is hand-brushed and spray-painted to mimic fading and accidental marks. Specially treated fabrics keep their natural creases, and some T-shirts carry hand-painted surfaces rather than conventional prints, their edges softened as if dispersed by wind and sand.
Color does much of the work. Rather than copy the traditional hues of the Dunhuang murals, AVVENN assembled a muted spectrum of Sea Mist Blue, Glacial Teal, Blackberry Purple and Coral Sand, grounded by khaki, grey and beige. Against that restraint, vivid accents of Mint Green, Ginger Yellow and Electric Blue appear only in glimpses, at a collar, a trouser hem or between layers, like small bursts of energy surfacing from an otherwise quiet rhythm.
Craft is where the Dunhuang landscape re-enters the clothes. The crystalline formations of nearby salt lakes, and the way light shifts across them, are interpreted through sequins and bead embroidery that scatter points of light across a garment. Contrasting fabrics are joined by needle-punching into irregular textures that recall geological strata and eroded rock. Elsewhere, cloth is folded and creased before printing, so that once it is unfolded the impressions of the process stay visible. The season also brings a collaboration with the artisanal studio Art n on earrings whose two detachable silver elements curve like a crescent moon, finished with small mint-colored accents.
On the runway, those textures were set into the rhythm of an ordinary day. Yoga leggings, sports bras and boxing shorts surfaced from under layered looks, like glimpses of private routine. Eveningwear skirts were paired with trench coats, athletic jackets and flip-flops. Lace shorts appeared beneath oversized outerwear, and tank tops, fringing and sequined skirts were set against sportswear. The everyday and the dressed-up were kept in constant exchange, which is the balance the house keeps returning to.
The FVM read, from the collection and the runway images rather than a seat in the room: Sanctuary is strongest when its concept stays in the cloth. The treated knits, the creased and needle-punched surfaces and the salt-lake embroidery give the idea of worn time something real to hold onto, and the discipline of letting bright color arrive only in flashes keeps the palette from tipping into decoration. The sportswear-under-eveningwear styling is the riskier move, and it mostly reads as intended, a day compressed into a single look. For an international house working this literally from a heritage source, the restraint is the achievement.
“Energy need not be sought elsewhere,” the collection notes close. “It arises from within.” Sanctuary was shown at Shanghai Fashion Week. AVVENN is at @avvenn_official on Instagram and at avvenn.com.
Images courtesy of AVVENN and L.E.R. Public Relations.
