January 23, 2006

Where Stuart Stockdale's take on Pringle's heritage called for brawny Celts in kilts, his successor Clare Waight Keller is more engaged by the epicene elegance of the label's most famous client. Sign in please, Edward, Duke of Windsor. Pringle supplied his knitwear, but Keller took her cues from the overall refined eclecticism of his approach to dressing. Hence the chic new fit of the jackets (handpicked finishing, Italian-tailored). Unstructured and unlined, they were designed to emerge uncreased at their destination, which would have been a real selling point for the peripatetic Windsor set.

Key flourishes—fully functioning surgeon's cuffs or a lapel trim cut on the bias—suggested Keller was channeling the Duke's appetite for the telling detail. It was also evident in the shirting stripe that piped a trenchcoat's interior.

The famous knitwear, no longer just a V-neck or crew, ran the gamut from a cabled sweater in ten-ply cashmere to a Henley in a featherlight 18-gauge waffle-knit. And that all-important heritage made an appearance in the form of chunky wool sweaters hand-knitted in the Scottish Borders. (Keller herself has been knitting since the age of five.)

— Tim Blanks