Elisabetta Franchi spring/summer 2027: tights as a second skin, from the micro-jaguar to red
At The Hub showroom the tights are the manifesto: micro-leopard footed leggings, sheer black with sandals and boots, red tights with a matching pump. The legs of the show, one by one.
On Friday 25 September 2026, at The Hub showroom in Milan, Elisabetta Franchi presented her spring/summer 2027 collection. It is the show of the week where hosiery matters most, because here it is not an accessory: a fabric that recalls tights is the material that dresses, skirts, tops and gloves are made of. And on the legs, in 15 of the 44 looks documented by the official gallery of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, three precise things appear: micro-leopard footed leggings that reach the foot, sheer black, and red tights. We went through them one by one, in the order they walked.
The manifesto: a fabric that recalls 80-denier tights
The house's official notes say it plainly: "Tights become a dress, a skirt, a top and a glove. A surface that clings to the figure and follows its lines." Sensuality, the house writes, "emerges from contrast. Covered and uncovered, opaque and transparent, structured and clinging." MF Fashion describes "a special fabric, recalling 80-denier tights, which becomes the manifesto of the collection", and Grazia, in its best-of of the week, is even blunter: "The absolute protagonist is the tights, in a second-skin effect."
The designer explained the rule to MF Fashion in a single sentence: "Transparency is a devilish weapon", and "you have to know how to dose it", because her advice is "not to overdo it: to leave room for the imagination rather than reveal everything". Il Fatto Quotidiano reads the collection as an inversion: "the body is redefined by the unprecedented use of tights, transformed from accessory to garment (dress, skirt, top and even glove)". The palette, according to the official notes, "starts from camel, tobacco and black. Nude and pink mix with Red Velvet, intense and decisive."
The micro-jaguar, head to toe
That is exactly how the show opens. A sculpted jacket and footed leggings in the same micro animal print on a nude ground, with matching gloves, and thong sandals on the feet: the hosiery covers the foot and the strap passes between the toes, over the print. It is the motif the press has nicknamed Giaguarino. "Franchi, a committed animal lover, invents the 'Giaguarino', an animal motif that looks like a thin tattoo on hosiery organza", writes Il Fatto Quotidiano. For MF Fashion it is "a spotted micro-pattern that seems to melt into the skin"; for Life&People it is "the classic animal motif" that "shrinks in size to become a refined micro-jaguar".
The Giaguarino head to toe: with the matching sculpted jacket and, later, with the camel blazer, always in a thong sandal.
The same footed leggings return under a corset with a skirt, under a skirt of gold maxi sequins, under a sheer high-neck top. Midway through the show they change register and go under daywear: a tobacco suede skirt with a jacket, and a brown pump; a grey suit with a bandeau top, and the thong sandal again. Towards the end, a camel blazer closes the series. In all, the micro animal print appears on the legs seven times.
With the corset and with the gold maxi-sequin skirt: the hosiery stays the same, everything else changes.
Life&People describes the piece as "skin-tight leggings that cover the leg down to the foot as if it were a sock". Il Fatto Quotidiano, in its piece on the week's shoes, adds the pairing: "Elisabetta Franchi proposes a mule with a leopard strap across the instep, echoed in the styling by a minimalist version worn in contrast with spotted leggings."
Under the grey suit and under the tobacco suede skirt: the Giaguarino with daywear.
Sheer black, with the sandal and with the boot
The second family is black. Early on, a cropped blazer with a bra is worn with ruched sheer black leggings down to the foot, long gloves and black shoes. Shortly after, a sheer high-neck top and a black leather skirt come down to sheer black hosiery slipped into knee-high leather boots. A leather bomber, open over lingerie, is worn with sheer black leggings that cover the foot, inside a thong sandal. Under a skirt of black fringe the leg stays sheer black down to the ankle.
Sheer black down to the foot, with the leather bomber and with the sweetheart bodysuit and long gloves.
In the final stretch the black turns more classic: a patent blazer with dark glasses and black gloves is worn with black tights and black pointed pumps, the only look in which the sheer leg goes into a closed shoe. Right after, a black sweetheart bodysuit with long gloves leaves the legs sheer black down to the thong sandal.
Sheer black with knee-high leather boots and with the patent blazer and pointed pump.
Red on the legs
Red Velvet, the red of the season, reaches the legs in two looks that walk close together. An ivory draped dress with a slit lets out a leg in sheer red tights, finished with a red pump. Shortly after, a ruched nude dress with sheer sleeves is worn with red tights and the same red pump. All around, red is everywhere: long red gloves with the powder-pink suit, a ruched red jersey dress with a high neck, red leather blazers and trenches, red sequins, red boots. Life&People speaks of a "red velvet that lights up not only the clothes but the whole atmosphere on the runway".
Red tights with a red pump: under the ivory dress with a slit and under the ruched nude dress.
Arms like legs
The hosiery fabric does not stay below the waist. Micro-leopard sleeves on a nude ground accompany a corset and a black skirt, and extend into gloves; Life&People calls them "sheer with a hosiery effect, in an arm-warmer version". Long gloves, black or red, finish many looks, and Il Fatto Quotidiano notes "a touch of skin pink set against the lacquer red of the crystals on the gloves". It is the same principle as the leg: skin covered by a veil, with a colour that changes it.
Ruched sheer black with the cropped blazer and long gloves, and the sheer leg under the black fringe skirt.
How to read these legs now
Three pairings from the show can be repeated right away, with autumn deniers. The first is sheer red tights with a shoe in the same red: on the runway it works under light, simple dresses, ivory or nude. The second is sheer black inside a knee-high boot, with a leather skirt or a mini: the hosiery shows only between the hem and the boot shaft. The third is a sheer micro animal print under a skirt in a solid colour, grey or tobacco, with a simple shoe. For density, our denier guide explains what changes between a sheer and an 80 denier. The context of the week is in our Milan Fashion Week report, and Dolce&Gabbana's opposite answer, the sheer sock with a jewelled sandal, is here.
The photographs
The images in this article are those of the official gallery of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, 44 photographs in the order of the show. The link to the full gallery is below.
Photos: Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, official gallery of the Elisabetta Franchi spring/summer 2027 show.
