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Burberry Prorsum

MILAN, January 16, 2005
By Tim Blanks
Following last season's Hockney-influenced orgy of primary colors, Christopher Bailey found fall inspiration in Hockney's close friend, the late Ossie Clark, artist manqué of English fashion. "I wanted something between Ossie, a young Mick Jagger, and eccentric British bohemia," said Bailey, after a Burberry Prorsum show that placed more emphasis than ever on the company's heritage.

Using fabrics from English mills only, the collection strove to recapture the golden moment in the late sixties when London's King's Road was the epicenter of global style. That meant an unusually extravagant (for Bailey) layering of colors, patterns, and textures: a straight-off-the-hippie-trail embroidered sheepskin vest over a silver striped cardigan over a chartreuse shirt, with a pair of narrow pinstriped trousers and ostrich shoes to round things off. Or skinny plaid pants and a green-and-white striped sweater worn over a shirt in an ornate William Morris leaf print. King's Road dandies would have felt right at home in a long-skirted Edwardian jacket or a gold-buttoned, double-breasted officer's coat. Their contemporary counterparts will appreciate Bailey's techno flourishes: a signature Burberry trench done in laminated cotton with a distressed effect; an electric-blue raincoat; and most of all, a transparently gorgeous bronze plastic Mac that's enough to give exhibitionism a good name.

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