February 21, 2017 |
A mass cape affair at Burberry this evening. To which we should apologise for starting at the end. But can you blame us? For the finale, the 80-ish models each came out in their very own custom cape. To which you might ask: what, exactly, is a custom cape? Well, here it basically encompassed anything that decorated the upper half of the torso. Which included (amongst many, many more) a sort of wedge of curtain that wrapped round the shoulders, a bejewelled number that crept up over the face, massive coils of rope, feathers, sparkly bits and bobs, armoured metal. All quite glam really. Bit Bob Mackie at points. You know us – no bad thing. The reason for such such a cape moment? Well, this whole collection was inspired by the artist Henry Moore, whose sculptures decorated the showspace and will remain there for the next week as a exhibition stretching over two floors. Bailey saw in him a fixation with the upper half of the body in his work. So why not decorate it? More personally, Moore’s own life inspired the collection – Bailey talking about the artist’s countryside studio that looked out on a field of sheep, sheep who would come to Moore when he tapped on the window. That story made Bailey think about shearling, and Moore’s illustrations of them. Could we say, then, that there was something sheep-ish about the collection? Sort of. There were those warm cable-knit jumpers, here deconstructed, warped and twisted about the body, soft, fluffy knitwear and, of course, the shearling jackets that fell to a waterfall hemline. But this was more about that touch of eccentricity – shirts that were slightly too long at the cuff, layers of lace (for men and women), striped t-shirts, trenches where the proportions were messed up a bit. To be honest, at eighty looks, there was pretty much an entire collection more that we haven’t even touched on. Still digesting. But it was very nice. And you can buy it now. Hoorah!
Photograph by Jason Lloyd-Evans
