La nuova collezione di Benetton cavalca la K-Wave

Forget 90s nostalgia: to speak to Gen Z, United Colors of Benetton looks straight to Seoul. The answer is called BBOLD, an all‑female capsule conceived by a Korean creative team and landing on 18 April in the brand’s European flagships — Milan, Rome, London, Paris, Vienna — as well as online in several countries and, of course, in South Korea. Here, Benetton operates about three hundred stores between United Colors of Benetton and Sisley, in a market that now sets the global aesthetic agenda, from K‑pop to Korean dramas. BBOLD translates the brand’s heritage — colour, knitwear, denim — into a K‑Wave dictionary made of technical layering, relaxed silhouettes, and sorbet palettes. The opening act features oversized poplin sweatshirts and shirts: vertical stripes, loose fits, and the “Bb” logo used like a college tag. The heart, though, is knitwear: boxy cardigans, tubular mini‑dresses, lightweight knitted shorts, and jacquard T‑shirts blending cotton and viscose, designed for a 24/7 wardrobe able to move from campus to club without changing style codes.

On the denim front, the reference is workwear, but filtered through Seoul’s irony: raw shirts with contrast stitching and vintage buttons set with pearls; cropped jackets that play with proportions; high‑waisted five‑pockets in a semi‑over fit, straight or wide‑leg, offered in two light washes. Closing the circle is a micro‑drop of activewear that pays tribute to the capital’s running crews with fitted tops, technical biker shorts and matching socks, finished with cut‑outs and colour blocks. Colour here is a design method, running through saturated pastels and sorbet shades that update Benetton’s chromatic vocabulary without slipping into polished nostalgia. The same logic applies to materials, from cotton‑viscose blends and lightweight knitwear to premium denim. Everything speaks of real functionality, calibrated for a generation that runs, posts, travels, and mixes garments without seasonal hierarchies. In the background, a precise strategy emerges: to recognise Seoul as a creative research hub and, at the same time, to relaunch Benetton as a player capable of cultural scouting, not just product.