POET-LAB is back with a trip down memory lane for SS27. Not in a nostalgic, rummaging-through-old-photo-albums kind of way. This collection is interested in the things we carry with us. Places. People. History. Identity. The memories that proudly make us who we are.
The starting point is Albania and the personal story of the collection’s muse, Elton Ilirjani. From there, designer Giuseppe Iaciofano’s inspiration moves through the country’s industrial landscapes, brutalist architecture and hard geometric forms. Concrete. Metal. Monumental buildings. Things designed to last.
And somehow, all of that ends up looking surprisingly sensual.
That tension is really where the collection gets interesting. POET-LAB takes the severity of architecture and lets the clothes misbehave around it. Fabric twists. Shoulders slip. Hemlines swell. Tailoring becomes asymmetric. Everything feels slightly off balance, but very deliberately so.
Black dominates the first group of looks, but there is nothing basic about it. A sheer, floor-skimming dress leaves the body almost completely visible beneath layers of fine black mesh. It is long, lean and unapologetic. Another black gown takes the opposite route. Fabric is piled and draped around the body, with one shoulder exposed and the other swallowed by tailoring. It looks somewhere between eveningwear and a beautifully collapsed suit.
Then there is a fitted black top crashing into a huge mass of glossy, crumpled fabric at the hips. Part skirt, part sculpture, part very chic bin bag with a pinch of Julia Fox. POET-LAB also has fun with exposure, and we love to see it.
A corset-like black top trails long strands of fringe almost to the knees, worn with sheer, loose trousers and a dramatic feathered eye mask. It is a little cabaret, a little gothic creature, and a lot more playful than all this talk of brutalism might suggest.
One of the strongest visual moments comes from braided hair stretched out from the head in dozens of long, twisting branches. Below it, a shaggy black jacket, tiny white bubble skirt and knee-high boots make an unexpectedly simple outfit. The hair does the architectural work.
An enormous white off-the-shoulder dress is almost comically pure in its simplicity. No complicated decoration. Just a huge volume of crisp white fabric falling from the chest to the ground. It looks like a bedsheet went to fashion school and graduated with honours.
That game continues with a white asymmetric top paired with a long silver skirt. A tiny black bag hangs from a gold chain at the chest, almost like a piece of jewellery. Another look throws a chunky brown knitted panel over white ruffles and a black balloon-hem skirt. It should feel messy. Instead, it has an appealing homemade quality, as though different memories have literally been stitched together.
And then POET-LAB brings out the tinsel. Just in time for Mariah to thaw.
A full-length silver look is covered from shoulder to floor in metallic strips, turning the wearer into a glamorous human disco decoration. A second version breaks that idea apart. Silver tufts explode across a cropped top and transparent mesh shorts, leaving large sections of the body exposed. It is silly, sexy and strangely futuristic all at once. After so much black tailoring and serious conceptual language, the sparkle feels like a welcome wink.
That mix of serious and strange is what gives REMEMBER its personality.
The collection is also refreshingly loose about who should wear what. Gender feels less like a rule here, and more like another construction POET-LAB is happy to pull apart.
Underneath the theatrical styling, though, there is a clear idea. Memory is treated almost like material. Something can be stretched, layered, distorted and carried into a new context without disappearing completely.
That makes the Albanian reference feel more personal than decorative. POET-LAB isn’t trying to put Albania literally onto every garment. Instead, its industrial surfaces and architectural weight become a mood. Hard against soft. Structure against skin. Permanence against movement.
And that is probably the nicest thing about REMEMBER. For a collection about the past, it doesn’t look stuck there.
It looks like someone packed their memories into an enormous eyelet bag, threw on some lace, added a mountain of silver tinsel and kept walking. You better STRUT.
Credits
Words by Lewis Robert Cameron
Designer @poetlab
www.poet-lab.com
Photographer @marcushartelt
www.marcushartelt.com
PR @i.deapr
Videographer Adam Cripps
Jewels @rosejoyuk
Bags @matbmaterialbag
Glasses accessories @faglasses.jp
Mua leaders
@jacy_garland_hmua
@backstagebeautyldn
Hair team leader
@prettygorgeoushair
