Selkie has never been particularly interested in quiet fashion. Founded by Kimberley Gordon, the eight-year-old womenswear label has built its identity around romantic dresses, exaggerated femininity and an unapologetically fantastical view of dressing. For Spring/ Summer 2027, however, Gordon took that fantasy somewhere considerably darker. Titled “The Ghost Ship,” the collection imagined a group of “warrior girls” travelling through a post-apocalyptic world, living off the grid and turning to performance, creativity and joy as a way of surviving what came before.
Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 Collection
Following Selkie’s runway-to-retail model, the collection was available to shop immediately, making the fantasy feel slightly more tangible. But the clothes themselves were anything but ordinary. Maritime folklore, pirate imagery, historical fantasy and circus performance were folded into Selkie’s familiar hyperfeminine language, resulting in a world of corsetry, romantic dresses, armour-like details and theatrical silhouettes. Chainmail, seashells, religious jewellery and oversized accessories added a darker edge to the brand’s usually dreamy aesthetic, as though the characters had taken the remnants of several different worlds and turned them into costumes.
The setting was imagined as a travelling pirate circus, populated by performers who have survived an unspecified catastrophe. It is a strange premise, but one that makes sense within Selkie’s universe. These women are not presented as victims waiting to be rescued. They are performers who have chosen to keep creating despite uncertainty, using theatre and imagination almost as a form of resistance. An impressively flexible performer opened and closed the show, reinforcing the idea that the runway itself was another part of the fictional circus.
Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 Collection
The collection’s title comes from Cheryl Strayed’s 2011 Dear Sugar advice column, “The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us,” which later appeared in Tiny Beautiful Things. Gordon was particularly drawn to Strayed’s idea that we will never know what our lives might have looked like had we made different choices. The lives we did not choose continue somewhere in our imagination, like another ship passing in the distance. There is no way to board it, so eventually, all we can do is acknowledge it and continue with the life we have chosen.
That idea gives the collection a surprisingly personal foundation. Gordon has spoken openly about decisions she has made, regrets she has carried and the criticism she has received online. Rather than trying to distance herself from that criticism, she incorporated it into the concept. Being called a “clown” and having her work described as a “circus” became part of the inspiration for creating the ultimate circus herself. There is something quite clever about that response: instead of treating the insult as something to escape, Gordon turns it into an entire visual world and makes herself the author of the joke.
Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 Collection
This is where Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 becomes more than another fantasy collection. The circus represents performance in a much broader sense. Gordon asks what it means to constantly perform when social media has made self-presentation part of everyday life. We perform versions of ourselves online, at work, in relationships and even in the way we dress. The collection simply makes that invisible performance literal.
The apocalyptic setting adds another layer. Gordon drew inspiration from the current cultural atmosphere of uncertainty as well as Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, a story in which performers continue creating art after civilisation has collapsed. The comparison is particularly fitting for Selkie because the clothes themselves are so committed to fantasy. When everything else disappears, what is the value of a beautiful dress, a theatrical performance or a piece of jewellery?
Gordon’s answer appears to be: quite a lot.
Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 Collection
The performers in The Ghost Ship do not create because it will necessarily change the world. They create because creativity itself is part of being human. That makes the collection’s exaggerated femininity feel less frivolous than it might initially appear. The corsets, romantic dresses, pirate references and circus costumes are not simply escapist clothing. They become evidence of imagination surviving under pressure.
Visually, that tension between darkness and fantasy gives the collection its strongest quality. Traditional romanticism is interrupted by harder elements such as chainmail and armour, while pirate and harlequin references make the clothes feel slightly mischievous rather than purely pretty. Religious jewellery and seashells introduce a sense of relics and objects collected from another world. Even the oversized accessories contribute to the feeling that these characters have built their identities from whatever remains around them.
Selkie Spring/ Summer 2027 Collection
It is also a natural progression for Selkie. The brand has always understood that clothing can function as a form of storytelling, but “The Ghost Ship” pushes that idea further by giving the clothes an actual narrative purpose. These are not simply women dressed for a fantasy; they are characters using fantasy to survive.
That may be the most compelling thing about the collection. In an industry that can sometimes take itself very seriously, Gordon’s response to uncertainty is not to become more restrained. It is to become more imaginative. She takes the anxiety surrounding social media, the fear of an uncertain future and the regrets that come with personal choices, then turns all of it into a travelling circus filled with women who continue to perform.
And perhaps that is what the ghost ship ultimately represents. There will always be another life we could have lived, another decision we could have made and another version of ourselves somewhere beyond reach. Selkie’s answer is not to chase that other ship. It is to stay where we are, embrace the strange world we have created, and keep making something beautiful from it.
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