“The best till last”: London’s Menswear Fashion Week certainly knew how to capture the moment with Chistopher Bailey’s Burberry Prorsum Fall/Winter 2014. Instilling the fashion house’s 158 years of noble heritage, Bailey veiled the entire catwalk held in the heart of Hyde Park in dreamy, female voices resonating much of Jeff Buckley’s tunes, while his men were transformed into truly elegant twentieth-century, bohemian men with ladylike silk scarves and Burberry’s signature jacquard blankets woven specially in Scotland – a place so close to Bailey’s heart. Bailey claimed his inspiration to have risen from the épater le bourgeois of the twentieth-century British society: uptight and working-class lavish. A collection highly inspired by one of Bailey’s hearty obsessions, an artist under the name of Duncan Grant, where Bailey showered himself with his canvas. Every dreamy background music beat mused over every beautiful look.
Burberry is overly known for its highly intricate knitwear detailing in classic outerwear. As the collection revealed, the more layers it preserved: from white string vests, to padded fur coats as the men walked down the winter-like season. Paisley-printed suede coat in blue and black as a reminiscent of Matisse and a padded leaf jacket and blue were looks to prepare for the upcoming bone-chilling season. However, amongst the heavy and neutral-tinted garments, the main attraction by Bailey was the beautiful silk scarves printed in detailed London map, casually draping on every Bailey’s men shoulders, yielding the feminism in his collection, as well as the oversized knitted Burberry checks to finish the dreamy collection. And not to forget the seasonal focus, autumnal leaves prints embodying the loose overcoats and cardigans as it hit England and Bailey’s homes.
This show was no exception to capture Bailey’s extraordinary respect to the fashion house’s traditional heritage, with a few kicks of modern technicality and technology to give the brand a season-to-season profitable success. “A Painterly Journey” title is one pin-point name for the collection with the exceptional art-and-crafts-y aestheticism of Bailey’s mind blowing Fall/Winter 2014. (Text Nadilla Sari Ratman)