Decoding Tory's design vocabulary

In an exclusive with ELLE India, Tory Burch speaks with Manish Mishra on reconciling luxury with longevity, and her latest collection

- Tory Burch

Tory Burch is known for her inventive, ingenious approach to clothing. For mixing daywear with activewear and layering unexpected separates. For her Fall/Winter 2022 collection, she proposed a litany of wearable pieces focused on craft. The high point was an immaculately finished blazer with curved hips. She focused on the idea of American sportswear— modern, timeless pieces you can make your own. “The construction of our blazers has never been better, and our team is really excited about the geometric jersey dresses and skirts,” she shares.

It was hard to overlook a pronounced focus on tailoring techniques with sculpted outerwear being lent couture finishes. When she was styling the Fall/ Winter 2022 collection, she thought about how different ‘characters’ might approach the pieces. “Maybe they’ll wear a full skirt with a track jacket, a sculpted blazer with jeans, or a jersey turtleneck under an evening gown. It’s really about separates: Everything can be mixed, matched, and experimented with. I can’t wait to see how our customers wear the clothes this fall,” she adds.

The collection also offered an array of evening pieces like hand-beaded jersey T-shirts, embroidered bustiers and bias-cut evening dresses. “We cut our Fall 2022 evening dresses in soft jersey—hardly a traditional evening fabric. I love using materials in ways that are counterintuitive; similarly, we used an iridescent shantung on a button-down you can wear for day or night. My design process always comes down to effortlessness, ease, and an unexpected detail or two, whether I’m designing a T-shirt or a gown,” she says.