Mexican designer Patricio Campillo is pushing the boundaries of fashion with an unusual material for his Spring 2027 collection, creating a jacket made from bacteria as part of a wider exploration of transformation, memory and the processes behind creation.
The experimental piece was presented during Campillo’s Spring 2027 runway show, titled “In Media Res,” a Latin phrase that means “in the middle of things.”
Rather than focusing on a finished product, the collection examines what happens while something is still developing and changing.
Speaking ahead of the runway show, Campillo explained that his creative direction came from the idea of capturing something during its transformation.
He described the concept as an object being imagined in the middle of another process, reflecting his interest in nostalgia and the desire to preserve moments that he considers beautiful.
The idea gives the collection a distinctive philosophical foundation. Instead of treating clothing simply as finished garments designed to be worn, Campillo approaches fashion as an evolving process in which materials, ideas and memories can change before reaching their final form.
At the centre of this experimentation is the bacteria-made jacket, which demonstrates Campillo’s interest in alternative materials and unconventional approaches to fashion.
The use of bacteria challenges traditional ideas about what clothing can be made from and raises questions about how biological materials could influence the future of design.
For Campillo, however, the material is not simply a technological experiment. It forms part of a larger conversation about nature, time and transformation.
By using something normally associated with science and biological processes in a fashion collection, the designer creates a connection between the living world and the creative process.
The Spring 2027 collection also reflects Campillo’s growing interest in nostalgia.
His approach suggests that fashion can be used to preserve emotions and experiences, much like photographs, personal objects or memories.
Garments become more than physical items; they can represent a particular moment before it disappears or changes.
The title “In Media Res” reinforces this idea. The collection does not appear to be concerned only with where a garment begins or where it eventually ends.
Instead, Campillo focuses on the period in between — the stage where an idea is taking shape and a material is becoming something new.
This approach is increasingly relevant to a fashion industry that is searching for more innovative and sustainable ways of producing clothing.
Designers around the world are experimenting with plant-based materials, recycled fabrics, laboratory-grown alternatives and biological processes as they look beyond conventional textiles.
Campillo’s bacteria-based jacket therefore stands out not only because of its unusual material but also because of the questions it raises about the future of fashion.
If designers can transform biological processes into wearable objects, the definition of a textile could become far broader than traditional fabrics such as cotton, wool or synthetic fibres.
The project also demonstrates how fashion can exist at the intersection of different disciplines.
Biology, technology, art and design come together in a single garment, showing how contemporary designers are increasingly looking outside the traditional boundaries of fashion for inspiration.
Campillo’s work suggests that the future of clothing may not necessarily be about creating garments from materials that already exist in familiar forms.
Instead, designers could increasingly work with materials while they are being developed, grown or transformed.
For consumers, such experimentation may initially appear unusual.
A jacket made from bacteria sounds far removed from conventional fashion, but its significance lies in the possibilities it represents.
New materials could eventually provide designers with alternative ways to create clothing while reducing dependence on traditional production methods.
The concept of freezing beautiful moments also gives the collection an emotional dimension.
Campillo’s work appears to ask whether fashion can capture something that is normally impossible to hold on to: a moment of change.
Rather than presenting transformation as something that happens before a garment reaches the runway, the designer makes transformation itself part of the story.
As the fashion industry prepares for another generation of experimental design, Campillo’s Spring 2027 collection offers a reminder that innovation does not always begin with a finished idea.
Sometimes, it begins in the middle of the process.
DDM News – With its bacteria-based jacket and focus on nostalgia, transformation and becoming, Patricio Campillo’s “In Media Res” collection presents fashion as something alive and constantly evolving.
His Spring 2027 work challenges conventional ideas about materials while exploring how clothing can preserve the beauty of moments that would otherwise continue to change.
