PIPENCO Spring Summer 2027 draws from Muma Pădurii, the Mother of the Forest from Romanian folklore, with designer Lorena Pipenco using the figure as the collection’s central reference. Generations have described her as a frightening shapeshifter who lives among the trees, using her monstrous appearance to scare children away from the forest. PIPENCO approaches the figure from another perspective, focusing on her role as a protector of the natural environment.
SPRING SUMMER 2027
Muma Pădurii guards the trees, animals and vulnerable life around her. She shows her most terrifying face to those who threaten them and reveals another side to those who enter with care. Spring Summer 2027 develops this duality through clothing, examining the distance between an intimidating exterior and the tenderness that can exist underneath it.
For Pipenco, the story carries a familiar understanding of how people interpret women. Strength can read as coldness, protection as aggression and boundaries as hardness. The collection considers how these qualities can develop around something deeply valued and how an exterior shaped by defense can conceal softness.
That tension takes physical form through the silhouettes. Branch-like structures extend from the body and create sculptural shapes that recall the exposed framework of a tree. Their tangled forms initially appear rigid and threatening. Closer examination changes that impression. Elements that seem heavy remain unexpectedly light, while surfaces that appear sharp feel soft and fluffy.
The construction encourages viewers to reconsider their first response to each garment. PIPENCO builds the clothes around the same contradiction that defines Muma Pădurii, allowing material, texture and proportion to challenge what the eye initially assumes.
The collection presents its forest as wild, irregular and alive. Familiar PIPENCO proportions become overgrown, while hand-developed textiles introduce uneven surfaces and organic forms. FABSCRAP donated every fabric used throughout Spring Summer 2027, allowing PIPENCO to work entirely with existing materials while translating the imagined forest into physical clothing.
A footwear partnership with UGG extends the collection’s themes through another interpretation of softness and protection. The collaboration grounds the sculptural clothing with footwear that belongs to the same visual and conceptual environment.
PIPENCO presents Spring Summer 2027 at Cuna NYC at The Standard, East Village, bringing its forest-inspired setting into New York City. The show gives the collection a physical environment in which the shapes, surfaces and references surrounding Muma Pădurii can exist together.
Throughout the season, Pipenco returns to the gap between perception and truth. Muma Pădurii carries fear and tenderness within the same figure, changing what she reveals according to the intentions of those who encounter her. Her frightening appearance functions as protection for what she values most.
Spring Summer 2027 keeps that contradiction intact. PIPENCO does not soften the folklore figure into something more acceptable or erase the qualities that made generations fear her. Instead, the collection asks viewers to reconsider what those qualities protect. Behind the branches, tangled forms and threatening silhouette stands a woman defending the forest she loves, reserving her softness for those who approach it with care.
