As Christopher Bailey sets out to disrupt the fashion calendar with a Burberry collection available the moment it’s shown, Hamish Bowles catches up with him in London to talk about fashion foresight—and gets an exclusive early look at the new pieces.
It’s like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!” exults Christopher Bailey as he walks me through the creative laboratory he has assembled on a light-flooded floor of Burberry’s London HQ. Bailey himself conceived the atrium interior of the imperially scaled prewar building, which is topped by a corrugated clear-plastic roof designed to amplify the sound of En gland’s falling rain (and thus remind everyone of the brand’s roots as the rainwear supplier to the British Empire).
“We have everything from people who just paint, to 3-D printers, embroiderers, packaging designers,” he explains. “I have a whole group of coders, and people involved with photography, music, architecture—we do all our own furniture and buildings. We’ve got photo studios and film studios. It’s basically a little design school.”
Along with supporting craft, Bailey has always been in the vanguard of technological and conceptual innovation—in 2009, for instance, Burberry was the first brand to live stream its runway show— and he is surprised by what he sees as the fashion world’s resistance to embracing technological change. “For an industry that loves moving forward—that’s about newness and inspiring people—how can we not be excited about the thing that has changed every one of our lives?” he asks. “For me, it’s the most thrilling thing—I used to cart my whole freaking CD collection around the world; people used to laugh at me. Now I have it all on my little iPhone. It’s magnificent!
This story is from the September 2016 edition of Vogue.
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This story is from the September 2016 edition of Vogue.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Clean Sweep- Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful.
Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful. In February of last year, Trotter took up the role of creative director at the 79-year-old maison, reawakening it from a five-year slumber, and a chauffeur—customary for an artistic director at the helm of a Parisian fashion house—simply doesn’t fly with her bluff Sunderland upbringing.
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