2. Que es?
Christopher Bailey is at an odd point in his career. As Burberry's CEO, he can now call all the
shots, but the way he contextualizes his product for the world is teetering on the brink of cliché.
Case in point: the angst-y troubadour James Bay, who played live during today's show. But
when Bailey called his latest collection "The Birds and the Bees," his motives can't have been as
wide-eyed innocent as the Burberry slate suggests. Clothes as sheer and curvy as these were
scarcely designed with the ingenue in mind, a point that was more than reinforced by well-
seasoned tabloid fixtures Kate and Cara parked front-row-center.
And yet it was some idealized vision of an English summertime that Bailey insisted he was
invoking. That's why he showed trainers you could run through a meadow in. A feeling of
freedom, he said. Same with all the sheer dresses, ruched or tiered tulle. Nothing to hide. Life
lived online. Over these dresses, Bailey laid tiny little shearlings, or wasp-waisted denim jackets,
like afterthoughts of definition. Often, he'd tie them with swatches of fabric, the way you see
bunches of flowers tied sometimes.
Lovely as that notion was, it couldn't add any spine to the collection. For that, Bailey relied on a
finale of unique linen trenches, hand-screened in the shapes and colors of beautiful old book
covers. Like all huge fashion businesses, the product that Burberry produces is now heavily
industrialized, and the key to customer engagement in the future is personalization. As far as that
currently goes, the trenches were gorgeous.
