Burberry Goes Back to Swinging London
March 16th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Burberry Prorsum’s Fall 2011 collection debuted on February 21, 2011 to a world-wide audience from its tent near the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. Parades of editors, celebrities and fashion “it” girls such as American actresses Rachel Bilson and Kate Bosworth, model Alexa Chung and famed fashion photographer, Mario Testino, all clamored for their seat in the front row. But this year, Burberry extended the front row to the Everyman. Burberry wunderkind, Christopher Bailey, and his team live-streamed this current collection onto a 32-meter digital screen in London’s famed Piccadilly Circus, and to more than 150 countries around the world and at 40 live events including their flagship store in Beijing. Burberry is the first fashion house to take the exploration between fashion and the Internet to this level even offering the ability to click and buy immediately from their website during the live show.
Although much of the excitement surrounding this fall collection stemmed from the brand’s embracement of technology and their forward thinking in this digital age, on the runway it was less about the future and more a nod to the past. From the soulful sound of Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Own Me,” to the mod color palette and shift dresses, this collection was all retro 60’s pop pizzazz.
“This thing about looking backward to look forward and forward to look backwards. I love the romance of looking at our archives. In our archives there were these incredible images of Jean Shrimpton wearing old Burberry ad campaigns,” said Bailey.
The fall collection was certainly a homage to the British supermodel and icon of swinging London. After last season’s tough, bad-girl leather and snakeskin, this season breezed down the runway in a playful color palette of burnt orange, red, browns, olive, dusty blue, playful cow prints, creams and black. Various renditions of the classic Burberry coat were explored and the structural outerwear came both cropped and traditional in length. The procession of coats boasted dropped waistlines, swingy, flared raglan sleeves, lowered shoulders, exaggerated toggles, and draped back pleats. The coats came in everything from wool to mink and were often tied off with thick leather belts or a delicate patent bow. The emphasis on the historic Burberry coat and the experimentation with proportion and fabrication paired nicely with the simple pants and shift dresses.
After this collection walked the runway, it was knocked by some of fashion’s elite insiders for being too much about the technology and less about range and the fashion.
“Burberry has to be careful that its brilliant and forward-looking embrace of the Internet does not leave too much behind — especially that ironic take on tradition, the British countryside and the brand heritage that Mr. Bailey can tweak so well,” said Suzy Menkes in her review in the New York Times.
However, it should be noted that the Prorsum in Burberry Prorsum means “forward” in Latin and that is exactly where Bailey is taking us. Forward into the digital age, positioning his brand and name to be exposed to the masses.
