another notes app sesh but Burberry!
(I need to finish my homework instead of writing this)
I’m not totally sold on Daniel Lee’s Burberry. I think he’s a talented designer and obviously turned Bottega Venetta around, but I have yet to be gagged by either of his Burberry runways. I appreciate his stylistic changes to the branding of the house and bringing back the serif font logo, but so far I’ve seen nothing on his runways that inspire me to dig into my closet and try to stylistically replicate. That being said, his SS24 was one of the most exciting shows I’ve seen this fashion month, not because of the pieces themselves, but because of Lee’s references.
While flipping through images of the show I was incredibly intrigued by Lee’s use of 1920’s silhouettes. The most obvious piece to note is the Burberry trench. The trenchcoat was popularized by Burberry in the 1920’s after WWI and it’s fascinating to see Lee lower the waistline to past the hips on both his ladies and mens trenches for the show, the in vogue waistline for ladies in the 1920s. The desirable body shape for women in the 20’s was “boyish” and undergarments transitions from corsetry that defined a woman's body, to containing it, either by boning corsets for curvier women, or a containing brassiere for slimmer women. The extension of the waistline further helped create the illusion of the desired shapeless body style.
While most of the men’s looks stay within the expectations of contemporary menswear, the hemlines of the dresses in Burberry’s SS24 show mirror those of the previous century with an abundance of asymmetry, handkerchief, scalloped and uneven styles. One of the most popular hem lengths in the 20’s was to just below the knee, another component Lee incorporated into almost all of his dresses. One of the dresses which is an acception to the hemlines was look 27, which hit above the knee, but the skirt of the dress was cut in panels which to me indicate a nod to La Garçonne and the Flapper which were ladies styles known to be more daring and androgynous in the 20’s. Two other dresses included in the show, looks 35 & 39 also allude to a Flapper reference which were fully fringed dresses.
The waistline on most of the dresses, including ones with less obvious 20’s references, still sit around the hips of the models. Because of how this lower waistline elongates the torso, which has not been the desirable effect of women’s clothing for decades, it feels like a very intentional attempt to transition the brand back to its early days of the 1920’s.
