Burberry’s new creative chief checks in
Riccardo Tisci, Burberry’s first new creative director for 17 years, referenced figures from Shakespeare to the Sex Pistols and even redesigned the label’s famous checks for his London Fashion Week debut yesterday.
‘You can be punk today, rap tomorrow, chic at the weekend. Burberry can speak to all those’
The first Burberry show under Riccardo Tisci, its new creative director, was always going to provoke a strong reaction. Ever since news of his appointment in March, Tisci has been tantalising fans with a drip feed of images. The reimagined logo, which he co-designed with Peter Saville, the legendary graphic designer who designed album covers for, inter alia, Joy Division and New Order, has been the biggest talking point.
A huge bear in the new monogram bestrides Marble Arch. The familiar horse and knight are out, replaced by a bold TB (Thomas Burberry) cleverly intertwined with a rescaled version of the Burberry check. Next came the announcement that he will collaborate later in the autumn on a capsule Burberry range with Vivienne Westwood. Then there’s the recent picture on Tisci’s Instagram of a Jackie Kennedy bouffanted lookalike in the most classic of beige Burberry macs: quintessence of bourgeoisie.
Coupled with Tisci’s talent for manipulating popular culture and its icons – he’s best friends with Katy Perry, Beyoncé and the Kardashians – it’s hardly surprising that there have been concerns about what he would do with a 170-year-old jewel, Britain’s oldest, most famous, most successful luxury fashion house, which generates around £2.3billion a year.
Which of these strands would he focus on? In the event, all of them. There were below-the-knee pleated librarian skirts, pussy bow blouses in trad Burberry checks, Dalmatian spot chiffon skirts and shirts and a plethora of delectable, waist-accentuating beige trenches – sliced not from the S&M leathers that some had predicted (at Givenchy, his previous home, Tisci forged a reputation for leathers with shades of S&M) but from unimpeachable gaberdines. There were leathers: toffee and camel coloured skirts, but also chic light wool, three-piece women’s trouser suits. He has vowed to bring Savile Row-worthy tailoring to Burberry, along with punk elements: “Who Killed Bambi” T-shirts (a Sex Pistols reference) mingled in this show with lean black goth-inspired evening gowns.
His tastes were no less catholic for men: City boys were well catered for with modern, relaxed tailored pieces. He’s good on street-wear too: cue jogging pants, graffitied trenches, drainpipes and deconstructed T-shirts, many with snatches of Shakespeare and Shakespearean characters on them. Passports dangled proudly from necks (in Tisci’s design manifesto they remain burgundy). The Burberry bag, previously a weak link, has clearly been upgraded and made recognisably luxury.
If it was panoramic in its references it was sweeping in its ambition. Tisci, a self-confessed anglophile, trained in London and then worked for the Monsoon chain before moving to Paris and Givenchy.
Like many outsiders, he’s fascinated by British extremes of conservatism and anarchy, freedom and repression, but smart enough to move beyond the clichés and to recognise that today’s consumers are consistent only in their inconsistency. “You can be punk today, rap tomorrow, chic at the weekend. I think the new Burberry can speak to all those tastes, generations and nations.”
If Christopher Bailey’s Burberry was soft focus, Brit-lite, Tisci’s will be tougher, albeit luxurious. Together with CEO Marco Gobbetti, with whom he works closely, Tisci has announced a rise in quality and commensurately, prices. Gritty, then, but expensive.