At Paris Fashion Week AW26, BONBOM reframes military codes through softness and control, captured on site by Olesya Parfenyuk for VAKUUM.
Presented as part of CONCEPT KOREA at Paris Fashion Week, BONBOM’s AW26 collection “Military & Femininity” explores the tension between structure and vulnerability. Founded by designer Bonbom Jo, the brand continues to shape a distinct visual language where tailoring, volume, and gender fluidity intersect. For VAKUUM, the show was documented on site by photographer Olesya Parfenyuk, capturing the collection’s restrained intensity and quiet precision.
The collection operates within a tightly controlled visual field, where military codes are not quoted but diffused. Caps sit low and slightly collapsed, softening what would otherwise signal authority. Their placement shifts the line of the face, interrupting symmetry and introducing a subtle imbalance that runs through the entire series. Discipline is present, but it never fully stabilises.
Silhouettes are constructed through tension. Oversized outerwear extends beyond the body, while shorter hemlines and exposed legs reintroduce fragility into the frame. Tailoring structures the look, but its function feels displaced. Jackets and coats hold their shape, yet the body inside them remains partially uncontained, moving between support and exposure.
The treatment of the body remains precise. Skin appears in controlled intervals, framed by fabric. These openings are narrow, deliberate, almost architectural. They guide the gaze without offering resolution, positioning the body as a point of interruption within an otherwise regulated surface.
Materiality reveals itself over time. At a distance, the garments read as composed, almost rigid in their execution. Up close, surfaces soften, pleats open slightly, and textures absorb light unevenly. This instability of surface introduces a temporal dimension, where the image changes depending on proximity and duration of looking.
Accessories shift the internal hierarchy of the look. Bags, often enlarged and materially dense, carry a visual weight that exceeds their function. Their presence alters proportion and pacing, pulling attention away from the garment and redistributing it across the silhouette. What might traditionally be secondary becomes structurally central.
Repetition builds a system, but one that resists closure. Recurring elements — caps, belts, structured outerwear — create a rhythm across the collection, yet each iteration carries a minor deviation. These shifts accumulate, preventing the system from resolving into coherence. The result is a controlled field that remains in motion.
The tension is most visible in moments where the silhouette appears almost complete. In these instances, alignment briefly occurs, but never fully settles. The collection maintains its intensity by holding these elements in suspension, allowing structure and softness, control and vulnerability, to coexist without hierarchy.
