Christopher Bailey is partial to rain. Forget gentle spring showers, the heavens have opened over England more often than a body can bear of late, and there was a palpable sense of so-over-it in Bailey’s new collection.
After a string of charming but muted celebrations of the artisan’s hand, Burberry was actually in need of some pop electricity, and Bailey used it effectively (bar the shiny sandals with the black socks). Surely you can only look at a soberly toned, leanly tailored suit so many times before you surrender to the desire to juice it with a shirt in an ice-blue metallic silk. Or maybe you’d rather wrap it in a fuchsia-shaded foil trench. The effect was stunning in the metallic leather blousons that closed the show. And when Bailey slipped metallics under the substantial military-influenced outerwear that is a house signature, it irresistibly reminded at least one onlooker of the TV series V, where the aliens peel away their normal faux-human exteriors to reveal sheen-y lizard skin beneath. Aliens Among Us? When was that ever a Burberry association?