Christopher Bailey finally did it. He showed a traditional Burberry trench, not cropped or colored or fiddled with in any way. What s more, he draped it over the shoulders of a model clad in a navy-blue suit, with smartly patterned shirt and tie. Thus did Bailey well and truly and, yes, unambiguously embrace the heritage of the house he has helped transform into a billion-dollar business. The inspiration for this particular outfit was the interior design guru David Hicks, the latest in a steadily lengthening line of Bailey s ineffably English icons. The spirit of Hicks presided over a section of the show marked by tailoring of a new sophistication for Bailey, albeit one leavened by a got-dressed-in-the-dark sense of playful eccentricity (collegiate-striped trousers clashing with a shirt in a 70s print that was sheer Hicks).
There was also a pair of carefully worn denims, with a crease pressed into them, that only a man of a certain age would sport. And he would probably be English, as would be the shameless wearer of the floral-printed short shorts Bailey sent out in the show s second section, inspired by Lord Snowdon holiday-making on Mustique. Bailey made it a hat trick with his third guiding light, Patrick Lichfield, who, in the 60s, photographed and modeled for Burberry campaigns. The military- and safari-influenced jackets and the leather bomber, all with huge gold buttons, were just the sort of garb favored by an adventurous aristo of Lichfield s ilk—and, like Hicks and Snowdon, he would never feel he was compromising his masculinity by adding peach or aqua pastels to his wardrobe.
