Burberry by Christopher Bailey
So what do I see the first morning over breakfast, on September 16, on the cover of the (London) Times?
A photo of four feet. One pair, probably a man’s, in winkle-picker shoes and pinstriped pants, the other a woman (who knows?) wearing black and red sling-backs with what would today pass for medium high heels.
The headline: “Danger: high heels at work. The debate begins.” British trade union delegates, tired of fighting for equal pay, have turned their attention to “Risk Assessment on Workplace Footwear.”
“Brothers and Sisters unite in a common cause: the right to kick off killer heels,” the saga continues. Trade unions are seriously assessing “the risk of wearing Manolo Blahniks in the workplace because Britain is tottering on the brink of podiatric catastrophe.”
Manolos? In the workplace? In this economy?
It is London Fashion Week, celebrating its 25th anniversary with no end of thrills, including a postal strike. Some of my invitations reach me in North West London; others, sent to South West London (where I stayed three years ago) have to be collected; the remainder are among the millions of letters waiting to be sorted by Her Majesty’s bloody-minded Royal Postal Workers.
My phone—in the North West London so-called luxury hotel—is not working (“we apologize”), nor the television (“we apologize”), nor the mini bar (“we apologize”), nor, on the first day, was there hot bath water (“we apologize”).
Because my phone fails to work, wake-up calls are a human banging on my door. At least they get the time right, most of the time, although not always. For instance, on the last day, when the banging coincides with the arrival of my taxi to the airport (“we apologize”).
The British love being sorry and are mildly outraged when their apologies are not accepted. The hotel does send up a large fridge to my room; it partially blocks access to the bathroom.
London Fashion Week has moved to Somerset House, which is a beautiful landmark on the river, made considerably less beautiful by fashion folk, tents, runways, security guards, and dozens of dolly birds whose mating cry is “’eow are yee-uw?”
London Fashion Week has exploded. More people, more shows, more noise, more VIPs, IPs, and just Ps—more everything. Burberry, the last hurrah, was like a mega Milan or Paris show. Big. It is ironic that Dior is getting smaller and moving back to its roots.
Dare one ask if celebrities, beloved by paparazzi and reporters because they create chaos, are not becoming somewhat boring? Who really really cares about a new face when ads are down and shopping is no longer a passion?
At Basso & Brooke I sit next to singer Michelle Williams from Chicago and a big black bearded man in a ginger wig and scarlet evening dress that Joan Collins might have worn in Dynasty. “I’m Miss Andre J.,” he introduces himself. A musician? “No, I’m a Personality. Google me.” (Maybe I will, some day.)
Fashion is a spectator sport. That started here in 1997 when Mounir Moufarrige replaced Karl Lagerfeld with the twenty-five-year-old Stella McCartney at Chloé, because Stella guaranteed a full front row of Beatles. M. Moufarrige, now boss at Ungaro, owned by San Franciscan Assim Abdullah, has named Lindsay Lohan, aged twenty-three, as Artistic Advisor.
Though I’ve come to see frocks, I found fodder for my future book, You Are Not on The List. On the first evening there’s a party at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s official residence.
“Not on The List” are numerous VIPs including Grande Dame Zandra Rhodes, Commander of the British Empire, presently designing collections for Marks & Spencer and Topshop.
A fashion party at Downing Street or Lancaster House or Kensington Palace (to entice international press and merchants to London) is interesting the first time because one can laugh at the paintings, sneer at the chintz, poke around the furniture, open the drawers (in many cases pocket a souvenir), scorn the canapés, and check out the loos. And crack secrets.
I recall a Margaret Thatcher party at Downing Street where her late husband, Dennis Thatcher, absolutely drunk, button-holed me, pulled me behind a curtain, and revealed more about Maggie’s taste in underwear than I needed to know, but nevertheless published with glee. It is also marvelous to behold the looks on civil servants’ faces when confronted with a designer wearing a full Halloween-turkey costume complete with red-and black-feathered wings.
The downside of Downing Street today, is that nobody can stand Prime Minister Gordon Brown (his own party is demanding his resignation), and the other guests are the same fashionistas swilling around New York, London, Milan, and Paris.
The first show is by Paul Costello, an old hand whose taste in music runs to Vera Lynn’s World War II songs—“We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when … .”
In all these years, I had never attended a Paul Costello collection, and World War II holds no attraction.
What follows is a party called Hedonism, featuring Stephen Jones, who designs hats for Christian Dior, John Galliano, and supermodel Erin O’Connor, vice chairman of the British Fashion Council, who introduces up-and-coming London milliners. Some were up, some were coming, and some were coming up from a kinky place with bandaged heads and apples in models’ mouths—fashion to die for, a British specialty.
The bottle-blond Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, confesses, “I must be the worst dressed person in the UK facing incontestably the most intimidating, glamorous, and nerve-rackingly tall people I have ever seen in my life.” He adds that “despite TUC threats, while I am Mayor there will be no ban on high heels!”
Other notable designers—Emilio de la Morena and Bora Aksu are clearly besotted with Rodarte and propose collections heavy on cobwebs, romper pants, patchwork, and origami folds about the derrière, which made me wonder whether sitting down was an option.
The next day is intense. Thirteen runway shows, of which I see eight. Eight is (Quite) Enough. American Vogue is well represented, but no sighting of the promised savoir of retail, Anna Wintour.
Designers I check out are Betty Jackson (simple, charming silhouettes with subtle prints), Nicole Fahri (sharp shapes, modern prints), Jasper Conran (delicate, lots of white, aristocratic), Unique (perfect for Macy’s), Graeme Black (inventive and very well cut), Antonio Berardi (orange, blue, and kinky black), Julien Macdonald (kinky cut outs), and Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label (let’s just say I prefer her Black Label which she shows in Paris).
Unencumbered as I am with tickets to most of the shows, I find my way in. The most chaotic, of course is Vivienne Westwood, and I attach myself to Manolo Blahnik and his entourage, who are demanding immediate entry because Manolo desperately needs a pee, giving a new meaning to the term Priority VIPee.
On Monday (September 21) the decibels plunge. Anna Wintour has arrived. There she is, at Luella (Courrèges meets Husseyn Chalayan), on time, no fuss, in a little print coat, waiting for the show to begin. Clearly the film September Issue scared a lot of people into polite behavior.
Later that morning, Donatella Versace is guest of honor at fashion guru Colin McDowell’s competition “Fashion Fringe.” (Winners: Jenny Holmes and Dimitris Theocharidis.) Though a seat is held for Ms. Wintour, she does not arrive. Donatella Versace and Anna Wintour are on the advisory board of Fashion Fringe. In her contract, Ms. Wintour permits Colin to call her twice in one year for advice.
What the paparazzi do with the million plus photos of Donatella is a mystery.
Sir Paul Smith also shows this day. His focus: Africa.
There are two heroic Christophers in London: Christopher Kane, who also designs Versus, the less expensive line for Versace—and Donatella wore his shoes and bag to his show; and Christopher Bailey, who designs Burberry Prorsum. Burberry has come a long way (thanks mostly to Rose Marie Bravo, now living happily ever after in New Jersey).
The beige trench is to Burberry what the black Smoking was to Yves Saint Laurent. Each one is slightly different; each one a true classic.
It was Grace Coddington who started the vogue (before she went to Vogue) for the Burberry—plain and simple—when only old businessmen wore a Burberry. She was always years ahead of her time.
The new beige Burberry trench is draped and twisted, looped and knotted, for boys and girls, and Emma Watson, and maybe Harry Potter.
Dare one also ask, where are young royals and politicians to boost young designers? Unlike French and Italian VIPs, who understand the importance of the fashion business, Brits still consider frocks a frivolity.
And are there a lot of frocks. Maybe Anna Wintour’s little printed dresses will bring back an age of innocence. Alas, the frocks—and everything else—have too many complicated details, draping, pleating, rouching, fabrics that twist, that braid, that loop, that roll into little balls, that crumple—nearly always on the bottom or over the hips and the waist. Not an easy fashion to follow if you are over sixteen in age and over two in size.
There were also spiky little shoulders—now called “Balmain shoulders”—that, in truth, were first designed by Alexander McQueen for his graduation collection at Saint Martin’s in 1992, and then also his Nihilism collection for Spring 1993, Kraken for Fall 1994, and The Birds for Spring 1994. (Thank you Simon Ungless, who worked with McQueen on all these collections.)
Kudos to Charlotte Lurot, who produced all the shows—with a broken knee; kudos to Anna Orsini, a stylish Italian who seems to be in charge of everything British and remains upbeat even when she loses all her invitations.
A note about goody bags—very popular in London. This season there were enough hair products to keep a salon in business for years; Jeremy Scott’s goody bag was a sugar pink cotton and leather tote, printed all over with objects that were either half-buried bones among grass, an asymmetric heart, or a penis rising out of pubic hair.
Amen.
Gladys Perint Palmer is working on drawings for a presentation in London on December 3.
