Dear Shaded Viewers and Diane,
Certain things will never change: her placid Britishness for sure, and the unruffled aristo-class with which she glides on plush carpets past a 32-piece orchestra sunken mid-runway, without batting an eyelash. But Christopher Bailey leads his Burberry muse to a markedly new direction for spring, past signature greatest hits and the dusty comfort of a trademark status quo. She’s younger now, very, and blessed with styling acumen. She has relocated further south, where summer is real enough to wear slip mini-dresses of Chantilly lace, polka-dot nighties or fresh, glossy, loose milky bottoms in satin, and pairs them with pool slides with a golden chain, or a leather jacket with golden zips, and pear-shaped, bum-grazing backpacks. She shows up with a tattoo-thin camisole underneath a hoodie with drawstrings, a navy sweatshirt and a tennis miniskirt that combines crocheted lace with a perforated technical fabric. The same mix comes as a pea coat, though unsurprisingly, the exclusively black outerwear is where traces of her noble lineage will to remain strong – double or single breasted, with square shoulders and golden buttons or golden leaves of diverse botanical inspirations, embroidered or pinned on the lapels. There are frog fastening and Austrian knots, a pleated cloak and two capes that fasten with a chain clasp, the one in velvet has a proverbial fairy-tale lustre. The handbags are tiny, for she who carries no burden: barely wider than the belt buckle that keeps them close, like old camera cases. And the seasonal must, florals, are either painterly printed on lace, almost tie-dyed on silk, or in one remarkable long-sleeved case, modelled beautifully by Aamito Stacie Lagum, 3D appliques of black-tinted leopard's bane blossoms.
Later,
Silvia
