Perks Field is a patch of Kensington Gardens that Burberry, at least for its fashion shows, once called home. Starting with June 2014’s magically-hatted Bruce Chatwin collection, there were three standalone menswear shows there, as well as one womenswear: the artsy-crafty and politely boho Fall 2015 collection. The house’s last outing at Perks Field was on January 11, 2016 for a menswear show at which all of us—including then creative director and CEO Christopher Bailey—were blindsided by the news that morning of David Bowie’s death. After that Burberry merged its lines, went see-now-buy-now, and Perks Field fell by the wayside. The dog-walkers of Bayswater reclaimed their territory.
Until tonight, when Daniel Lee took Burberry back to where it once belonged. According to unconfirmed chatter, we were even in the same gabardine tent that had been used for some of those 2010s shows. If nothing else, Lee’s move felt like an act of propitious fashion feng shui: the Perks Field years overlapped with the modern high point of this tentpole British house, so why not move to inhabit the same space a decade later?
As much as his venue, Lee’s collection was also a carefully calculated throwback that centred around arguably the most powerful currency in British cultural capital: music. As he explained in the backstage cluster afterwards: “I started to think about fashion’s love affair with music, and how to celebrate that. Really, I think musicians have always been the best in terms of style.” Lee’s own musical upbringing, he added, was shaped by his Harley-loving dad and majored on metal bands including Black Sabbath, which explained this evening’s in-tent soundtrack.
The collection, however, ranged further. Lee interestingly suggested that his anticipation of the upcoming Sam Mendes-helmed Beatles movie had led him to propose this collection’s riff on the super-skinny Beatles suit (blended with the Small Faces mod suit) as a device to shift the needle of silhouette from baggy towards skinny. Short trench coats were delivered in denim-effect waxed cotton that radically changed their register from the creamy properness of gabardine to a much rockier, counter-culture feel, with an added shot of otherness delivered by the Western line of its arcing chest yoke. There were also A-line versions of the Burberry archetype, shorter and covered with not-quite psychedelically coloured weave-effect checks, that seemed a trench-ified homage to Mary Quant.
Skinny scarves, fringed and whipstitched bags and collars, and slightly stacked rocker boots were all reliable instruments with which to rearrange your look in a musical direction. There were minidresses in check chain mesh and medallion pattern crochet (sometimes integrated with bronze discs). Another Lee cover of Burberry’s timeless standard saw the trench reimagined in suede and perforated with paisley pattern needlepunch.
Much of this collection leaned towards the archetypes of attire for bands and fans that hailed from the 1960s and ’70s, but not all. A fantastic parka with shearling lined hood was treated to look like surplus and edged with Burberry-stamped webbing to add to that impression: combined with a flower logo ringer shirt, straight leg jean and house check tactical boot it was an outfit that looked a hit for festival-goers from any vintage.
Early in the line-up we saw the rising of a stylised sun motif on the side stripe of pants and impressed into the back of pastel satin bombers. Its full contextual meaning dawned much later via a skinny scarf and two trenches printed with tarot cards. These were printed at too small a scale to divine in detail on the runway, but no matter: this collection represented an efficiently appealing performance from Lee and his design ensemble that should further restore Burberry’s fortunes.
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