The road to riches that Pringle of Scotland would like to take has already been well mapped out by Burberry. Case in point: The company s creative director, Clare Waight Keller, named David Hicks as the presiding spirit behind Spring/Summer 2007, a full 12 months after Christopher Bailey dedicated a show to the famed decorator. That said, these clothes worked in their own right. For one thing, Waight Keller was less interested in Hicks s trademark geometric prints (which have been seen on fashionable Burberry-clad backs all over town this show season) than in the elegant informality of the man himself at rest in the South of France. That translated as a mohair-linen mix jacket; a three-piece suit with casual, pleated trousers; and fine-cotton shirtings in Riviera-inspired stripes.
Pringle s heritage is fabric, and Waight Keller was clearly excited by a ticking stripe in 100 percent cashmere that had been developed for her by an old British mill. Plain to the eye, luxurious to the touch, it was a good example of the way this collection sought to freshen up the familiar. When Waight Keller cut the ticking into a blazer, she created the sort of must-have that we re used to seeing from that other Brit label.
