full coverage of fall 2006 ›

January 16, 2006

It's the company's 150th anniversary, so Christopher Bailey has heritage on his mind, and he's decided that the one thing that unites the three strands of Burberry's history—tailoring, outerwear, and eveningwear—is the trenchcoat. No surprise there perhaps, but to prove just how far that trademark trench can go, he showed it in washed leather, herringbone and houndstooth wool, quilted silk, and even a lustrous brocade.

Bailey is on something of a mission for fall. Bored with jeans and T-shirts, he wants to see his men more dressed up. So he claimed the Duke of Windsor (an idol also cited at Missoni, by the way) as inspiration for elegant worsted pinstripes, Chesterfield coats, and three-piece suits tailored dandy-sharp. There was a formal edge to the ruffled shirts and fringed scarves, the pleated front on a wool/silk sweater, the beaver collar on a coat, or the way the burgundy of a velvet stripe on a trouser leg was picked up in the revers of the accompanying coat.

Still, Bailey was determined that his drive to dress not get too precious, so he added flourishes of low style: bobble hats, oxblood winklepickers, studs outlining the v-neck of another sweater. And never mind the trenchcoat: Burberry's outdoors ruled in a fur-trimmed anorak and a chunky duffel coat (over a gotta-have-it cabled cashmere sweater in papal purple).

— Tim Blanks