The bow is still there—of course it is—but something has shifted. Shushu/Tong's Spring 2027 collection, shown this week in Shanghai, presents the Chinese label's signature hyper-feminine vocabulary with a new self-awareness, as if the designers had caught their reflection mid-curtsy and decided to hold the pose a beat longer than comfortable.

This is the paradox facing Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang five years after their label became shorthand for a certain strain of internet-era femininity. The Shushu/Tong girl—all pleated minis, oversized bows, and weaponized sweetness—has been so thoroughly absorbed into the visual language of contemporary fashion that the brand now risks becoming a reference to itself. The Spring 2027 answer appears to be: lean into the uncanny.

Sweetness with an edge

The collection opens with familiar territory: a butter-yellow babydoll dress, a white blouse with exaggerated puff sleeves, the requisite ballet flat in patent leather. But proportions have grown stranger. Hems hit at awkward mid-calf lengths. Bows appear not at the neckline but at the small of the back, trailing like vestigial tails. One standout look pairs a corseted bodice with wide-leg trousers in matching gingham—the silhouette of a 1950s housewife who has wandered into a Comme des Garçons fitting room.

The palette, too, has matured. Alongside the expected pastels are shades of dried rose, tobacco, and a particular grey-green that suggests mold on wedding cake. These are colors that acknowledge decay, or at least the passage of time.

The globalization of girlhood

Shushu/Tong's timing is shrewd. The "coquette" aesthetic that dominated social media for the past several years has begun to curdle into self-parody, with even its most devoted practitioners posting ironic takes on their own wardrobes. By introducing notes of deliberate discomfort—a too-tight waistband here, an off-kilter hemline there—Lei and Jiang position the label as in on the joke without abandoning the customer who still wants to wear a bow unironically.

The Shanghai setting matters. Chinese fashion weeks have steadily gained credibility as proving grounds for designers who understand both domestic consumers and the global luxury conversation. Shushu/Tong, with its Central Saint Martins pedigree and Shanghai production, embodies this duality. The Spring 2027 collection reads as a message to both audiences: we know what you expect, and we are choosing to give you something adjacent.

Our take

This is not a reinvention—Shushu/Tong remains recognizably itself—but it is an evolution that suggests the designers understand their cultural moment better than most. The girlhood industrial complex will not last forever, and brands that survive its inevitable backlash will be those that built in room for ambiguity. Lei and Jiang appear to be hedging their bets: still sweet, but with the faint taste of something sharper underneath. Whether the customer follows them into this slightly darker nursery remains to be seen, but the collection makes a compelling case that growing up does not have to mean growing out of bows entirely.