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Burberry’s Knotted Moment in London

Burberry returned home to London Tuesday night, Sept. 22, staging the slickest runway show in living memory here in a local college, as the house unveiled its giant new Thames-side headquarters.

Staged in the Chelsea College of Art and Design, the
famed plaid brand’s catwalk show was a high wattage event, which attracted the posh, the political and extremely pretty. Sitting front row beside Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts were Emma Watson, Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mary-Kate Olsen, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Alexa Chung and Mario Testino.

In the next block of seats perched Agyness Deyn and Victoria Beckham – both sporting extremely black hair – and Korean actress Na Young Lee. Opposite that trio sat the U.K. cabinet minister Peter Mandelson.

Burberry Prorsum – the house’s top line - Spring 2010 women’s collection was a thoroughly assured affair, a savvy stylistic dissertation by the house’s creative director Christopher Bailey that focused almost entirely on the label’s signature piece of apparel – the trench coat.

Burberry streamed the show live and the collection really soared. Ironically, for a U.K. label returning home – Burberry usually stages all its men’s and women’s runway shows in Milan – the collection had a rather French feel to it, the Gallic touch evident in the brilliantly twisted “reef knot” chiffon shoulders and finish of the trench coats and subtle understatement of the styling.

Bailey sent out trenches crocheted, rouched for glamour, toughened with military belts, or cut off at the hip and then softened when paired with chiffon skirts. Made in combination of buttery leather, washed gabardine, chiffon, parachute silk and lots and lots of tulle and gauze, the collection looked pretty splendid throughout.

“I wanted to focus on what this house is all about, its essentials and that’s why I was so intense about trench coats,” Bailey said, adding that his title for the collection was “Twisted Classics.”

There were a tad too many pastel colors that reminded one of a box of macaroons and a few of the raincoat-dresses had "Dynasty"-style sprouting shoulders, which were a tricky wear and a tad too much. But overall this was a first rate lesson in how to create wearable clothes and present them with panache.

“It’s a brilliant distillation of the essence of the brand,” commented Mandelson.

Post-show, hundreds crowded into Burberry’s new headquarters at Horseferry House, just yards from Lambeth Bridge and the Thames, the festive climax to the London Fashion Week, which this season celebrated its 25th anniversary.

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