Korean label BONBOM presented ‘Optimistic Fetishism’, its Spring-Summer 2027 collection, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris: a playful, light-hearted take on fetishism in which knitwear becomes a second skin and every garment changes depending on where you look at it from.
What if a garment were not the same from the front as it is in profile? What if looking at it twice were, in fact, part of the design?
That is the invitation BONBOM extends with ‘Optimistic Fetishism’, the Spring-Summer 2027 collection the Seoul label presented at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Founded in 2020, BONBOM arrives in the French capital with a proposition that dares to take on an uncomfortable word and turn it on its head. Fetishism is approached here from a playful, light-hearted perspective, centred on the act of looking and on a fascination with certain shapes, textures and proportions. The collection explores the relationship between desire, fixation and the way clothes are perceived on the body.
The game begins with the silhouette. From the front, the garments appear streamlined and sharply defined; in profile, they reveal unexpected volume. It is the tension between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, between what is sensed and what is discovered as the gaze shifts. Exaggerated hairstyles and sculptural styling extend this play of perspectives, turning each look into a piece that demands to be observed from more than one angle.
Behind this vision is Bonbom Jo, a designer who graduated from the London College of Fashion and has worked in Texas, Denmark and Paris. The label, a unisex high-fashion brand with a focus on womenswear, operates under the motto ‘Sensual Futurewear’ and is known for its use of pleats and volume – the very volume that, this season, appears by surprise when the garments are seen in profile.
If one material takes centre stage this season, it is knitwear. BONBOM works it into loose, sheer constructions that cling to the body like a second skin. And here the collection’s other big idea emerges: concealing and revealing. Open structures let the skin show through and breathe, so that a fabric associated with warmth becomes light and exposed. What once protected now suggests.
The staging matched the concept. The show, shared with Korean label ASPARAGUS, was part of Concept Korea, the platform through which KOCCA supports Korean designers, and coincided with the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and France.
Beforehand, the premiere of ‘How to Walk’, a fashion film by Ock-seop Yi, interpreted the creative worlds of both labels. In the audience, Shownu and Hyungwon of MONSTA X wore pieces by BONBOM and ASPARAGUS as ambassadors for Concept Korea.
With ‘Optimistic Fetishism’, BONBOM shows that desire need not be dark or solemn. It can be light, playful and even optimistic. All it takes is a second look.
