In partnership with Onitsuka Tiger
“When the opening look is a motorcycle, you know you’re in for a treat.”
So began RUSSH Executive Fashion Director Hannah Cooper’s evening with Onitsuka Tiger in Milan, where Fashion Week took a strange turn after dark. For its Spring Summer 2027 show, the Japanese House created what Cooper describes as a “fantasy town” – one where everyone, naturally, is a rev head.
Before arriving, Cooper dressed herself in Look 7: “The cutest love heart baby doll dress with the most comfy and versatile floral sweater,” she says. The latter doubled as an over-the-shoulder sweater before migrating around her waist as a skirt after dancing at the after party. On foot, she “had to try the shoe of the season” – the kitten heel sneaker in OT yellow. "Arriving to the show, there were huge crowds," Cooper said. "Fans were screaming and waiting on their favourite stars to arrive."
Inside – dubbed ENERGY STATION – the runway moonlighted as a Lynchian roadside service stop: a makeshift gas pump, laundromat and car wash assembled as a surrealist meeting point for its cast of model characters. Cooper clocked a flower stall and bodega in the mix, too: "The talk of the front row was 'This is incredible and so unexpected!'
It was a fitting world for a collection built around ideas of motorsports garb. Riding gear collided with 60s and 70s tailoring; Americana with Japanese street codes; bike leathers appeared alongside sheer dresses and drifting layers. Even the clothing didn't feel particularly interested in staying in its lane.
The collaboration with Honda propelled the collection more firmly into moto territory. Helmets appeared alongside leather motorcycle trousers, graphic racing tops and brightly coloured Honda-branded leather minis. Elsewhere, fringed leather vests and aviator sunglasses brought a Western inflection to the service-station fantasy. "The Honda x Onitsuka Tiger collab pieces were a runway standout for me," Cooper said, "plus the knee-length boots and tassled jackets."
The Japanese fashion House’s unmistakable yellow and black – forever linked to Kill Bill and those infamous Mexico 66s – moved beyond the sneaker this season, climbing into calf-high, lace-up boots. Or, as Cooper put it, in this particular fantasy town, “the boots are made for stomping.”
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Footwear vocabulary expanded elsewhere too: sneaker-ballet-flat hybrids with laced-up pointed toes; studded loafers bearing their signature stripe; boot wedges and sneaker heels bringing some early naughties camp. But there was softness amongst all that grit, too. Paisley velvet dresses hung languidly from the shoulders, while diaphanous tunics were layered over sheer pieces. Grey sweatpant fabric was reworked into drop-waisted, layered mini skirts, while plaid trousers sat beneath thick leather belts worn slightly askew.
Tailoring followed the same off-kilter logic. Jackets and button-ups were finished with shoe-string-like bolo-inspired clasps in place of traditional ties, adding something distinctly Western and undone to otherwise familiar silhouettes. Bags arrived studded, metallic and floral; sunglasses were naturally intrinsic to the uniform.
Beauty, meanwhile, was minimal and windswept – a chicer take on helmet hair, if you will.
But the show had one more reveal in store. “The black curtains fell post show to reveal a bar complete with motorcycles, dance floor, and cocktails,” says Cooper. Her order for the evening? A vodka grapefruit called ‘The Pink One’, which was, naturally, her “drink of choice all evening”.
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Looking for more Milan Fashion Week highlights? Check out our curation of the best street style from the Milan SS27 shows.
