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For me Christopher Bailey’s work at Burberry has never been so beautifully perfect than the Spring/Summer 2009 collection. When you say 2009 it doesn’t actually seem all that long ago but in this instant and rapid fashion world that’s actually more than fifteen collections ago. This collection felt perfect for today, a day when our current summer is very clearly dying before our eyes and making way for the first signs of Autumn.
Watching the collection I was entranced by this beautiful idea of a series of ‘Garden Girls’, caught in a bracing shower in the middle of summer in a classical English garden. The girls, and indeed the guys who punctuate the runway show, got slightly wet in their dash for cover among the blooms in the greenhouse. It was in this greenhouse that Bailey had Mario Testino photograph the ad campaign to accompany the show. To this today it’s still one of my favourite, if not my favourite campaign. The way the light’s coming brightly through the glass, as if the rains just stopped and the garden’s about to come back to life.
The knitwear was soft and thin, degrade dyed to resemble wet hems, the trench coat’s had amazingly detailed embroidery with frayed edges and the accessories were made from woven pieces of straw. This is the Burberry and Christopher Bailey I love. It’s classic and beautiful and drenched in perfect ideas. It’s a shame this show happened before Burberry made the move back to showing in London as this has to be one of the best interpretations of British style in my eyes.