Pedro del Hierro Spring/Summer 2027
Pedro del Hierro asked Madrid to stop and look. For a while, it was worth obeying.
HANAMI, Nacho Aguayo and Álex Miralles’s Spring/Summer 2027 proposal, takes its name from the Japanese ritual of contemplating cherry blossoms and extends the idea into something broader: ephemerality, disconnection and time itself as luxury. The Invernadero del Palacio de Cristal de Arganzuela did much of the conceptual work before the first model appeared. White architecture, vegetation, shallow bodies of water and a soundtrack of soft voices, aquatic effects and restrained music created an unusually calming start for fashion week. Even the casting decisions amplified the collection’s ethos: fresh, dewy faces and sun-touched skin made the models look less styled for summer than recently returned from it.
The clothes initially met that atmosphere with considerable intelligence. Crinkled surfaces, pleats, washed silk, linen and rayon allowed garments to move rather than announce themselves; ecru, grey, teal, petrol blue, cyan and acidic yellows appeared with enough restraint to keep the palette sophisticated. Asian references were present without requiring anyone to arrive carrying a fan: Mao collars, wrap constructions, sash-like cummerbunds and kimono-derived tailoring were integrated rather than pasted on. This worked especially well in the menswear. Miralles’s wrap-front jackets, relaxed shirts, narrow footwear and fluid layering translated the collection’s philosophy into actual construction. It was soft without becoming limp, intellectual without needing to tell you it had read a book.
The women’s collection had similarly strong moments, particularly when Aguayo trusted proportion, colour and movement. Layered whites, pale greys interrupted by yellow, teal against red, translucent knits and softly structured tailoring created a convincing tension between precision and ease. There was also something pleasingly Spanish in the acceptance of fabric that creased, collapsed and moved naturally—Adolfo Domínguez’s famous la arruga es bella hovering over a collection built from washed and crinkled surfaces, whether intentionally or not. More importantly, it suited Pedro del Hierro’s own history. The original designer understood unusually early that fashion had to negotiate fantasy with real clothes, and Aguayo has previously spoken about his own obsession with not putting “smoke” on a runway, but garments a customer can actually acquire. At its best, HANAMI honoured that pragmatism without looking pedestrian.
Then the flowers arrived.
And of course they did. Hanami is, literally, flower viewing, so demanding a floral-free collection would be rather unreasonable. The problem was not the reference but how literal it eventually became. Early botanical gestures and abstracted motifs were tolerable precisely because the collection had already established a subtler language through texture, layering and colour. As the floral section expanded, however, the conceptual whisper became considerably louder and less interesting. Spring flowers are not exactly unexplored territory, and after such a sophisticated opening, several prints felt like the explanation for an idea we had already understood. The collection was strongest when Japan functioned as impermanence, wrapping, and movement, and weaker when it became imagery.
A similar loss of discipline occurred as the show moved toward evening. Sequins, glossy satins and a few sportier interventions interrupted the poise the earlier looks had accumulated. The relaxed sequin tops in particular seemed to belong to another conversation entirely; some satin surfaces caught the light with a flat, synthetic-looking sheen that made otherwise elegant shapes feel cheaper than they were intended to. The jewellery was similarly distracting at points, adding visual weight where the clothing benefited from silence. None of these decisions destroyed the collection, but across 70 looks they diluted it. A show about stopping to appreciate what is fleeting might itself have benefited from knowing when to stop. The irony is almost too obliging.
That length matters because Pedro del Hierro is not operating as an experimental micro-label. It is one of the established premium-mass brands within Tendam, a group that generated €1.47 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year; the adult division containing Pedro del Hierro, Cortefiel, Hoss Intropia, Slowlove and OOTO grew 7.8% to €394.6 million. The house therefore has to make spectacle coexist with product, which is not a creative handicap so much as the very contradiction on which Pedro del Hierro was built. Aguayo and Miralles have been steering the women’s and men’s lines on the runway since the brand’s 2018 return to Madrid after sixteen years away, and HANAMI shows why the arrangement works: there is enough commercial intelligence underneath the fantasy for much of this wardrobe to survive outside the greenhouse.
So no, HANAMI is not groundbreaking. It does not need to be congratulated for discovering Japan, fluidity or flowers in spring. But it does contain something more valuable than novelty for novelty’s sake: a genuine sensitivity to atmosphere, material and the emotional effect of clothes. The opening half understood that beautifully; the later passages occasionally mistook embellishment for development. Still, Pedro del Hierro began Madrid Fashion Week with a collection that was thoughtful, wearable and, when it resisted the urge to explain itself, genuinely elegant.
HANAMI was at its best when it asked us to pause.
It became less serene whenever it seemed afraid we might get bored while doing so.
WRITTEN BY FREDDY ESPINAL
