For spring, Christopher Bailey presented an electrifying color saturated take on the classic Burberry Prorsum suit and the iconic trench the brand is known for. The summer of the debut of this collection was a wretched one in Britain, with rains that produced devastating floods. Instead of succumbing to the gloomy pall of the weather, Bailey dispelled the doldrums with a collection of full on metallics in brilliant colors. “There’s a time to be very, very serious and very sombre… and there’s a time to be happy and exciting, and that’s what I wanted to try and do with this collection,” said Bailey. “I wanted to make people smile.”
The metallic fabrics used in this collection was a welcome harbinger of spring weather. Starting out subtly at first, Bailey introduce just a touch of metallic sky blue on the collar of a black caban style coat. Another trench was fully rendered in magenta silk foil. Soon a silvery rainbow of colors ranging from fuchsia, to lavender, bottle green, ultramarine blue, orange and yellow were poured onto every garment from trench coats to finely tailored blazers, trousers, and shirts. All were re-imagined in a metallic silk and iridescent leather. One onlooker raved, “I wasn’t expecting to see such bright colors, it was fantastic!”
A relaxed khaki caban coat with a funnel neck collar over a similarly toned printed short sleeve tunic was made all the more interesting with bright yellow metallic trousers.
This was followed by a metallic burgundy silk knit v-neck cardigan over a pale green shirt and dark green tie that had a collegiate school boy vibe. Among the standouts in the collection was a playful metallic ultramarine and teal green baseball jacket worn with a robin’s egg blue dress shirt, and black high-waist stovepipe trousers.
The combination of futuristic fabric treatments with retro styling was a heady mix of vintage meets contemporary. Christopher Bailey succeeded in presenting an exuberant collection that combined classic charm with fantastic tailoring and an unexpected fluorescence.
