Christopher Bailey and Christopher Kane reflect dramatic boardroom changes in their catwalk collections
The correlation between the economy and hemlines is still unproven, but at London fashion week the link between what happens in the boardroom and what happens on the catwalk has never been clearer.
The Burberry catwalk show, staged in a giant marquee in Hyde Park, is the linchpin of London fashion week. This was the first womenswear collection to be staged since October's shock announcement that the chief executive, Angela Ahrendts, was moving to Apple, and that her role would be inherited by designer Christopher Bailey, who now directs Burberry's business strategy as well as design. Bailey's Burberry, as expressed on the catwalk, is proving to have a more creative and sensitive soul than the Burberry of Bailey-and-Ahrendts. Power dressing is out and artistic temperament is in.
Last month Bailey cited the St Ives painters as inspiration for his menswear collection; this womenswear show was entitled "The Bloomsbury Girls", and drew in style and attitude on Charleston, the Sussex home of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
Bloomsbury has been a recurring Burberry reference over the Bailey years – the autumn 2009 collection was inspired by Virginia Woolf – but the connection is to be made official this autumn, when the fashion house will become patrons of Charleston, "to help protect the creative and cultural heritage … for the public".
Bailey said backstage that he wanted this collection to be "softer and gentler" than previous seasons: "At Charleston, they painted everything – bookcases, doors, fireplaces – and it has this beautiful effect, as if all these objects have a little bit of soul. That's what I wanted to capture, which is why we hand-painted everything – all the bags, all the shoes, all the coats."
Rich silk dresses with a vintage 1940s midi-length silhouette came in dusty pink and cinnamon, and were layered under leaf-printed blanket-wrap jackets or filmy organdy trench coats hand-painted with flowers, in the Charleston style. "We wanted shapes that felt emotive and joyous," said Bailey.
At Christopher Kane the reverberations of dramatic boardroom changes were felt on the catwalk in a very different way. With substantial investment from Kering, Kane's label is being scaled up, and a Mayfair store is due to open later this year. With investment comes a new focus on profitability and brand-building: witness the sudden abundance of handbags, traditional money-spinners of designer fashion, on the Christopher Kane catwalk this season.
This is not to say that joining the big time has made Kane bland. If anything, the scaling up of the brand brings the quirk at its core into sharper focus. On to a newly luxurious catwalk – double-breasted cashmere jackets, mink-trimmed coats, cocktail dresses with 40 layers of the most delicate organza – stomped shoes covered with ruched nylon which were "based on the clinical idea of covering your shoes, like in a hospital". Handbags in alligator and python were fastened with seatbelt buckles, a detail revived here from Kane's graduate collection, and henceforth given "house code" status. The subversive-sexy cocktail dresses Kane's customers love were more delicious than ever, with milkmaid ruffles in anorak nylon, or suggestively slick, wet-look lenticular lilies printed against petals of black organza. But the surprise standout was the tailoring: most of the audience left with a Kane winter coat inked on to their next-season shopping list.
Bailey and Kane have in common a laser-like precision which has the ability to make lesser talents look lazy and unfocused. So it was a testament to the deep bench of talent at London fashion week that several other names made their presence felt. Antonio Berardi impressed with immaculately tailored pieces which, the designer said, "will give a woman poise. I don't love stretch, I make dresses to sculpt."
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