@burberry: what's your name

We were driving up, in Jessi's car, parking near the Albert Memorial - knowing we were running late for the Burberry show. It was cold, the light getting low in the sky after a beautiful sunny day, and suddenly we see this huge glass pavilion, as we're walking - Jessi, who used to model before she moved to Paris and got married and had her darling son, Jasper. Jessi, tall and California blonde, statuesque in killer heels.

This unbelievably gorgeous, spiritual music, was pouring out, as if from the heavens. WOW. We could see the show going on, through the glass. The guards directed us where to get in to the show, but you know what? It was nearly over, and it felt right to be outside. With the crowd. Watching Jessi get papp'd, watching the blogger/celebs who didn't get Burberry invites get papp'd.. and then, as the guests poured out, watching the circus go by. Fame. What's your name.

I am a firm believer that where we are is where we're meant to be. I don't mind not being inside the show, because the people I met and the photos I took.. I'd not have had any of that experience otherwise. This is now my philosophy of life: wherever I am, I try to be present.

I'll be posting more, but I need to get over to Somerset House now. If you want to see what we didn't, here's the show in its entirety. It's really worth playing all the way thru - I've got Happy Together running through my head (& p.s.: LeahB, I found the version! It's Misty Miller singing it, thank you Eleanor Frost) - but the end.. man, oh man, is Christopher Bailey an artist, or what.

the emperor's new sublime plum coloured aviator jacket, with feathers

Last night I had started a post about Burberry and didn't get round to posting it, then a remark that Looking Fab in Your Forties made today, about getting nabbed by the Burberry Police @ their Puerto Banus branch, for trying to photograph a 'sublime' plum coloured aviator jacket, reminded me that I'd dropped the ball.

The thing about Burberry as a brand, and Christopher Bailey as a creative force, is - this is strictly my own opinion, mind you - the way he can take a theme and just expand it, play around with it.. it's really worth looking round the site or better yet, if you can get to a store, just spend some time absorbed in his head. It must be quite a magnificent head.

For example: take these three looks, above. It's almost Emperor's New Clothes the way every brand, from high end to high street, took his aviator jacket as shown on the top left and scrambled to get their own version made - took the khaki & brown palette - and yet, when I was walking round the store, what captured my imagination was the SAME PLUM COLOURED AVIATOR JACKET - with the softest feathery 'shearling' collar - that Looking Fab almost got nabbed in a resort on the Costa del Sol, for trying to photograph.

And I don't feel he always gets it right. The top right one, for example. He's trying an idea, playing around with quilted parka material, which is going to be huge this winter, but it just doesn't do it for me, in that shape, with that dress. Is it just me? I mean, even the model doesn't seem comfortable in it, and no matter how thin one is, it's bound to chop them in half and making them look and feel.. chunky.



But then again, these jackets... I didn't dare try anything on, but I just stood there a while like a toddler, transfixed with playing with the zipper. I didn't even try to take the jacket apart into two pieces, just marvelled at the idea: for the mere price of £1,295 (over $2000.00!) you actually get two jackets in one: a short cropped navy, and a longer shapely silhouette (or, conversely, you could simply appreciate the craftsmanship and creative genius, then go on said holiday to the Costa del Sol for a week).


You know (or perhaps you don't) that pretty much everything on my post is my own photography (apart from recent self portraits which are usually from my non-photographer husband, Mr. Dot, who seems to like to start shooting before I'm actually ready to pose).

This time I'm making an exception, using photography from Burberry's own site. Thanks Burberry!




I guess what I"m trying to say is, from everything I've read and heard about the man, he lives quite simply, he's delightful, warm, friendly, not remotely a diva, and clearly has such fun and takes such joy in taking themes and just playing around with the ideas. He inherited a brand known for two things: tan trench style raincoats, and a certain plaid check pattern in rather dated colour scheme. He's almost made us forget it was All About the Trench, and now that it's All About the Aviator, what I'm getting all excited about is midnight blue wool pea coats, or again, that sublime Burgundy wool felt number. In one room, I was in the colour scheme I got all psyched for while on holiday in the Dominican Republic: the cool jewel like colours of the purples, with navy, olive green..



And while I know for most of us it's all about the shoes, I'm not even going to go there in this post. For once, altho I am so not an It bag girl - I haven't bought anything over £100 since my Coach days back in NY - I still have to marvel at the way he's kind of exploded the iconic check into all directions. He's like the Picasso of the fashion industry for me.



Perhaps his piece de resistence for me at the moment, tho, goes back to his Burberry roots. A trench. In white. MADE OF FREAKING FEATHERS. This is, for me, what it's all about. (And at nearly £3000, or $5000 USD, one could go on QUITE the holiday). He's taking a RAINCOAT, for goodness sake, and making it out of feathers. He's taking the piss out of himself, in a sense, and of his brand, while at the same time, making us look twice, and appreciate the beauty, the craft. I just can't wait to see what he does next!

fluff

There was a girl in our school - a friend, actually - named Pam, who, in a sea of rich, thin, spoiled, beautiful girls, was particularly rich, thin, and spoiled (I remember, for example, her dad gave her an orange Porsche for her 16th birthday. She had the cutest boyfriend in the school, and when he accidentally totalled it, her dad simply gave her another one, also in orange: just a different model). She was still a perfectly nice girl, and, like most style icons, was shrouded in mystery because she rarely spoke. She had a bedroom so vast, in hot pink and lime green, that one of her walk-in closets, larger than some people's bedrooms, was devoted to just her handbags and shoes.



I thought of Pam when I met this sweet model, because Pam had a coat just like this one. Her brother brought it back from someplace exotic, like Afghanistan or Uzbekestan, and she was wearing it one time, in 'the city' (NY, that is) at a store like Bergdorf's, or was it Bloomingdales, and a buyer spotted her and asked to borrow the coat to copy it, and it became a whole line that season. Pam was that kind of girl.



Christopher Kane, as you're probably all quite aware by now, showed a lot of beautiful ethnic flowered embroidery, in his case on black (leather, knitwear), and of course, the other genius that is Christopher, Bailey, did some wonderfully unexpected turns with leather, Shearling, and fur, at Burberry. I mean, can we possibly get anything more perfectly yin/yang than this?



That same year, btw, I had that exact same mohair hat, in the same shade of beige. There was a girl named Maxine who couldn't have been more opposite to Pam. She nicknamed me Fluff and ribbed me mercilessly, but I loved that hat and wish I had it, still. Funny, the things you remember. Do you have a favourite item of clothing that has disappeared? Or, while we're at it: has any major department store copied your coat?