Wow, London Vogue Week got here again huge time this season. Simone Rocha, S.S. Daley, JW Anderson and Moncler had been the buzziest reveals, however Burberry AW23* was the one with the best expectations. Did it ship? Hmmm, nonetheless unsure.
There have been excessive hopes for a repeat of Daniel Lee’s work turning round Bottega Veneta. Specifically, new CEO Jonathan Akeroyd is aiming to double Burberry’s leather-based enterprise, so all eyes had been on the baggage. For some motive, I had assumed a extremely polished luxurious imaginative and prescient, maybe laced with some youthful road components as teased by the pre-show marketing campaign that includes a roster of cool Brit luvvies. Nevertheless it undoubtedly steered extra Gen-Z grungy-grime than Low Key Wealthy Bitch.
After the primary exit of darkish inexperienced outsized trench (above), issues went quickly within the path of a Lee-ified sexed up home test, reimagined in loud colourways; Purple! Yellow! Pink! They had been reduce into youth-friendly kilts, metal-zipped tailor-made pants (very cool truly), fits, blanket scarves, bomber jackets and knits. And styled in anti-luxe, Portia-from-The-White-Lotus messy layers; skirts over trousers, trailing hems, badly tied belts.
The baggage had been, actually, very stable when you extracted them from the considerably laboured styling. The leather-based regarded good (the baggage are made in Italy), the shapes had been luxurious but relaxed and the colors (bottle inexperienced, burnt orange) had been robust but pretty timeless.
The place Lee and I disagree are within the wacky equipment. I do know it’s de rigeur to be sarcastically ugly however let’s simply say knitted duck invoice hats and (fake) furry-soled mules are sort of over earlier than they’ve even begun. (Plus, didn’t Gucci do these yonks in the past?) Maybe Vanessa Friedman put it finest when she summed it up with, “There was plenty of TikTok catnip. What there wasn’t was a variety of emotion or huge new concepts.” Not the TikTok catnip! The Lower’s Cathy Horyn mentioned there was “an excessive amount of stuff, an excessive amount of merchandising and product improvement — and never sufficient of pure design. That’s the place the actual edge and thriller occur.”
That’s the factor, I feel. For me there was no romance, no heart-pounding moments or sense of specialness. It didn’t make me need to be a part of the Burberry universe. But, Lee isn’t naïve. Vogue is altering, the client is younger-leaning and TikTok (whether or not Gen X likes it or not) is at this time’s communication channel. This felt like a present to seize the headlines for his debut.
I think subsequent collections could also be extra finessed and focussed on intelligent designs. Consumers too aren’t dumb. Trying previous the gimmicks, they collectively received enthusiastic about the identical issues; buckled biker boots, outerwear, the brand new test, cross physique luggage and all the blankets.
As Jonathan Anderson advised The Guardian, “British trend now can’t be tweed skirts … we are able to’t conceal behind historical past and heritage”. So, perhaps we’d higher study to love the meme-worthy Wallabees and “witty” duckcore in the interim. As that notable British sage, Basil Fawlty as soon as mentioned, “Should you don’t like duck, you’re somewhat caught”. Looks like we’re caught with it!
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Burberry AW23
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