Elizabeth II just made Christopher Bailey a Member of the British Empire, an award that usually arrives for services rendered to queen and country.
Bailey is the most tirelessly Anglophiliac of designers, exalting even the aspect of life in England that makes most outsiders bananas: the weather! It's a misconception anyway—the French and the Germans have it just as bad—but in Bailey's case, the day that begins with a thunderstorm and ends in a rain-rinsed, wistfully pastel sunset offered the perfect beginning, middle, and end to his latest collection for Burberry.
Backstage, he was insistent about a utilitarian aspect to what we'd seen, and form following function actually gave the clothes real spine, particularly with a yellow parka that looked like a lifeboat man's sou'wester.
A long coat in waxed-cotton canvas had enough pockets to make the most irredeemable poacher blissfully happy.
And Thomas Burberry himself would have appreciated the way his gutsy gabardine showed up in a waterproof coat or cape.
Bailey's own contribution to the Burberry lexicon has been a singularly English feyness, which emerged here in the label's signature coat reconfigured in tissue-fine, pastel-shade nylons, with ruched sleeves to boot.
It's endlessly fascinating that the same designer is capable of green-lighting accessories as butch and irresistible as the canvas knapsacks that said "army on leave in the Lake District."
These pieces had a vintage tale to tell as evocative as the soft leather Chelsea boots.
But before one's imagination ran riot over what looked like bondage gear swathing torsos, Bailey was quick to point out he'd actually been inspired by the straps that working men used to sling their coats over their shoulders.
Too bad. That would have been a troppo interesting development.
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