Alice + Olivia Spring Summer 2027 “Through the Looking-Glass of Park Avenue”. Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Alice + Olivia.
Fashion has an enduring habit of mistaking sobriety for intellect. Every few seasons, minimalism threatens to flatten our wardrobes into beige utility, only for an unapologetic dreamer to burst through the ballroom doors and remind us that fashion, at its most exhilarating, is pure theatre. For Spring/Summer 2027, Stacey Bendet did not merely knock on the doors of imagination—she kicked them wide open, tumbling headfirst down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole and taking New York along for the ride.
Titled Alice in Wonderland, Bendet’s collection for Alice + Olivia is a vibrant, baroque meditation on fantasy, scaled up to delirious proportions. While the fashion world continues its anxious, hand-wringing debates over artificial intelligence—fearing cold algorithms might strip craft of its soul—Bendet flipped the narrative on its head. Instead of using technology to streamline or sterilize, she treated the machine as a whimsical garden rake, tilling algorithmic possibilities into lush, tactile embroidery that human hands then brought to life.
The Park Avenue presentation felt less like a showroom and more like an enchanted botanical salon where scale had lost all sense of propriety. Colossal, sculptural blooms towered over the mosaic floors, while an enormous stiletto sculpture commanded the room, heralding the label’s ambitious relaunch of footwear with grand, unapologetic theatricality.
At the core of this hyper-romantic playground was an intoxicating trio of garden-scene pieces that redefined modern maximalism. An opera coat, sweeping down in heavy cascades of dense tapestry and sequined vegetation, enveloped a daring halter scarf top and tailored midiskirt. Beside it, a classic bulbous ball gown unfolded like an eighteenth-century fresco struck by lightning. Archways of antique stone, blooming trees, and dense foliage were rendered not in flat digital prints, but in richly textured beadwork, gold thread, and multicolored micro-embellishments that caught the light like morning dew on botanical glasshouses.
What makes Bendet’s vision work so compellingly here is the tension between architectural discipline and surrealist abandon. One moment, we see an impeccably cut ivory silk tuxedo—razor-sharp at the lapels and softly flared at the hem—held in quiet dialogue beside giant, velvety botanical stems. The next, that crisp tailored sensibility collides with Carrollian mischief: a sparkling silver sequined cardigan thrown casually over a striped shirting ensemble, complete with a necktie and crisp striped shorts, poised beside a towering crimson rose whose thorns look capable of demanding someone’s head.
Humor and couture sensibilities coexisted effortlessly. A frothy white feather miniskirt paired with a bow-tied crop top stood nonchalantly beside a giant blue-and-white Delft porcelain Cheshire cat. Elsewhere, a monochrome babydoll dress layered in rich black scalloped lace and voluminous balloon sleeves offered a cheeky, gothic-infanta take on the Mad Tea Party, ground neatly by theatrical platforms and delicate white lace tights.
Yet, whenever the collection threatened to wander into pure costume, Bendet pulled it back with masterful silhouette play. A floor-sweeping cerulean ball gown dusted in three-dimensional organza petals achieved sheer weightlessness, fading into an atmospheric ombre meadow at the hemline. Meanwhile, a tapestry-inspired minidress draped in an embroidered court train proved that modern eveningwear can be historically grand without taking itself too seriously.
Bendet understood an essential truth about modern luxury that so many brands forget: elegance does not require the suppression of joy. By allowing digital intelligence to feed her most uninhibited creative instincts, she produced a wardrobe that feels lavishly crafted, vibrantly eccentric, and unmistakably alive. In a landscape often starved of romance, this was a delicious, intoxicating reminder that reality is overrated—and Wonderland is always just one magnificent dress away.
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