For Spring/Summer 2027, the Munich label puts linen with a denim look centre stage. Its story begins with 2,000 old linen sacks.
Faded blue, suggestions of bleaching, the appearance of jeans worn for years. The eye recognises denim. Against the skin, there is pure linen. With this shift, elemente clemente loosens a familiar connection: the way a garment looks need not determine how it feels. For Spring/Summer 2027, the idea takes centre stage as “The Denim (R)Evolution”.
Jeans are among those clothes that require little thought in the morning. They work with a white T-shirt, a shirt, a blazer. We often like their signs of wear as much as their cut. On hot days, though, heavy fabric can lose some of that easy appeal. The desire for the look remains; the desire for substantial cotton trousers, perhaps less so.
This is where elemente clemente comes in. The label has included linen with a denim look in its range since 2023. European linen is digitally printed using water-based colours. Shades of blue and wash effects recreate the surface of worn denim while leaving the natural texture of the linen visible. The fabric retains its lightness and fluid drape.
A Material Story, Told Through 2,000 Sacks
The choice of linen reaches far back into founder Clemens Dörr’s history. In 1988, before elemente clemente, he established Kandis & Kandismann. French linen sacks discovered at a flea market gave him an idea: he bought 2,000 unused sacks dating from the First World War from a French state depot and turned them into his first menswear collection.
The pieces were sold by retailers including Ludwig Beck and Uli Knecht. For Dörr, it was an early lesson in how long a material can last – and how much creative scope there is in something originally intended for an entirely different purpose.
In 2002, he founded elemente clemente in Munich. Linen remained central, with generous cuts and clean lines becoming part of the label’s design language. Working with existing leftover fabrics is also part of its approach.
Blue with Room to Move
For Spring/Summer 2027, the denim look appears in wide trousers, shorts, relaxed shirts and flowing dresses. Made in Tunisia from European linen, the pieces draw on the ease of combining jeans with other clothes. Elasticated waistbands and loose silhouettes leave room for the body to move.
The collection ranges from understated, monochrome looks to pronounced wash effects. The interplay of surfaces is particularly interesting: printed traces of denim meet linen’s own distinctive texture. Familiar blue takes on a different drape, and the silhouette changes with the material.
The Question Behind the Look
Through its “No More Dirty Denim” campaign, elemente clemente addresses resource use and working conditions in conventional jeans production. Its own alternative starts with the fibre and the treatment of the surface. The company works with a longstanding production partner in Tunisia, alongside other manufacturers in Europe.
The collection also gives tangible form to a design question: what exactly do we want to keep when we rethink a garment? With jeans, it might be the blue, the casual character, the ease of putting an outfit together. elemente clemente carries these familiar qualities into a different material. Ultimately, the result can be understood physically: in the movement of wide trousers and the feel of linen on a warm day.
