Burberry Prorsum

MILAN, September 30, 2003
By Sarah Mower
How right it was that Christopher Bailey called in Kate Moss and Stella Tennant—two exemplars of instinctive British style—to show his most accomplished Burberry collection to date. "I just wanted it to look as if it was thrown together," the designer said. “As if you’d been caught in the rain.”

Given that the house icon is a mackintosh, it was a stroke of genius for Bailey to build the collection around summer showers; the washed-out pastels and off-whites he worked into crinkled shirtings, gauzes, and leathers looked like they’d benefited from a good soaking of soft English rain. He opened with pinstriped shirting made into trenches, a bag and great skirts that dipped nonchalantly from a hip yoke, interspersed with the prettiest cotton tops and wrap dresses. Breezy shirtdresses and blouses were feminized with scalloped edges and embroidery, but never to the point of cutesiness. Bailey took elements of London’s tomboyish street style—a little skirt, a knit top, and the stringy college scarf he’s made famous—and made an outfit that would pass muster in any chic global capital.

As for the classic trench, it was cut neat and to the knee in delicious wrinkled putty-colored leather; transformed into a bolero with storm flaps; and reduced to a tiny silky capelet for evening. Splashed-raindrop prints played over coats, jackets, and swimwear as well as on the black-and-white wrap dress that Moss chose as her favorite piece. The classic plaid appeared too, on white-edged clutches and—what else?—a tightly-rolled umbrella. It’s that kind of confidence to play with the signature looks that has this house thriving in an otherwise stormy economy.


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