BY JAY AQUINO

JUNE 19, 2026

For Spring/Summer 2027 at Pitti Uomo, the DSM Kei Ninomiya collection was shown in Florence inside the Sant’Orsola convent-turned-museum, making clear that Kei Ninomiya’s new Dover Street Market-backed project is not simply a more accessible extension of his design universe.

After training as a pattern-maker under Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons, Ninomiya launched Noir Kei Ninomiya in 2012, building a reputation around structure, repetition, and almost obsessive garment engineering. With DSM Kei Ninomiya, that precision is redirected into co-ed sportswear, streetwear, and punk-inflected menswear, creating clothes that feel more approachable at first glance before revealing how carefully they have been disturbed.

The show leaned into grunge and punk codes with total conviction: plaid, tartan, safety pins, badges, buttons, chains, zips, distressed textures, and black leather. But the strength of the collection was that those references did not feel like styling props. Safety pins appeared in neat, controlled rows across shirts and bomber jackets, turning a symbol of damage and DIY repair into something closer to couture embellishment. Tartan kilts were cut short, bringing together sensuality, and school-uniform provocation. Parachute trousers and shorts were cinched and fastened in ways that made the body look both restricted and ready for movement.

There was also a strong musical intelligence running through the collection. Punk and grunge have always been about resistance, attitude, and refusal. The use of Jamie Reid’s artwork gave the collection historical weight, linking it back to the visual language of the Sex Pistols and British punk culture without turning the show into a museum exercise. The Schott N.Y.C. leather jackets, sprayed with words like "chaos," added another layer of legitimacy, grounding the collection in the history of rebel outerwear.

The collection felt contemporary because of its tension between chaos and control, with models moving through the space in a staged sense of disorder while the clothes remained intensely calculated. Open-weave knits covered in badges, black tailoring traced with dangling chains, zip-heavy trousers, and George Cox creepers all suggested a wardrobe built for self-expression, then refined through Ninomiya’s technical eye.

DSM Kei Ninomiya’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection worked because it understood punk as an attitude to creation. It was rebellious, yes, but also sensual and sharply made. In Florence, Ninomiya proved that menswear can still use punk to challenge authority, not by making more noise, but by cutting, pinning, and reworking familiar clothes until they no longer behave as expected.

Discover DSM Kei Ninomiya Spring/Summer 2027 collection here.