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.
