As one of the capital’s biggest super brands, Burberry always makes a splash at London Fashion Week. Everyone wants to get their hands on a ticket - and today they did. At precisely 1pm, the SS21 show was live-streamed on burberry.com as part of fashion week’s overwhelming move towards digital happenings in light of coronavirus, with more than 43,000 tuning in from all over the world. It might be unprecedented, but it certainly gives customers – who would otherwise largely have to watch events unfolding second-hand on social media to see what they would be buying in six months – the opportunity to engage with the brand on a different level.
The hype was significant, with a teaser dropped on Instagram Stories, showing what looked like murky footage from CCTV, and an Augmented Reality (AR) invitation. Photos, drip-fed on the brand’s grid over the past 48 hours, showed that the digital presentation would be a meeting of two minds between Riccardo Tisci, Burberry’s chief creative officer, and Anne Imhof, a performance artist celebrated for her endurance works from Germany. It will also be certified carbon neutral in the brand’s ongoing commitment to sustainability - yesterday, according to theFT, it became the first luxury brand to issue a sustainability-labelled bond - with 10,000 trees planted in the countryside for all the guests unable to attend.
First up, fans were invited to a pre-show chat on Twitch, a live-streaming platform, with hosts Erykah Badu, who was wearing one of the house’s fabulous visor hats, Rosalía, Steve Lacy and Bella Hadid talking about where they are in the world (‘my farm surrounded by animals’, Hadid, ‘LA LA Land,’ Lacy). They discussed everything from their lives over the past few months to their club names to how their creative paths crossed with Riccardo’s. ‘He never forgets a birthday or a birth or a Mother’s Day,’ said Badu. About lockdown, Hadid said: ‘A lot of us are workaholics. This quarantine, I’ve found my hobbies again. I really took in nature again, something I needed and the world needed.’ Rosalía agreed. ‘During quarantine, I was staying in Miami. We discovered the water and the sea. I feel a deep connection with the sea and nature again.’
The ‘show’, entitled 'In Bloom', was a musing on the natural world and, in particular, the sea. ' ‘It began with a thought of British summertime; embracing the elements with a trench coat on the beach mixing with the sand and the water. I envisioned the people of this space, like the lighthouse keeper, and a love affair between a mermaid and a shark, set against the ocean, then brought to land,' said Tisci in the press release.
It started with a model walking into a mirrored changing room to try on clothes, while birds chirped in the background, with her reflection repeated into infinity. The shot then cut to another model, this time walking through a forest wearing an elevated trench, Tisci’s signature, escorted by an entourage of suited men. Gradually, more and more models emerged through the trees, creating flashes of electric blue and orange, while side shots showed onlookers wearing crisp polo shirts and tees watching from bed-like platforms shaped like giant Ts. The music then shifted gear, and the models circled around a floodlit clearing. A dancer performed to the music of a single electric guitar, then the onlookers started swirling smoke flares through the air and moved in pairs to mimic the ebb and flow of water. The models then started walking off the 'catwalk', giving viewers a better look at the clothes, which ranged from pool blue trenches to thigh-high cut-out boots to spangled polo shirts to cropped jumpers with corset detailing.
'The collection is called In Bloom because I was thinking about regeneration, about dynamic youth, about nature constantly recreating itself, always growing and evolving, always alive. Water is a symbol of that also – of newness, freshness and cleansing. And through water, life grows – water is what allows nature to bloom. Everything is circular,' said Tisci.
For something watched on a laptop screen or phone, it was thrillingly atmospheric, especially with the intimate conversation beforehand, like something you might overhear backstage but never be privy to in real life. If this is the future of shows, something that spans the worlds of fashion, art, performance and tech, speaks directly to its audience and includes everyone, Tisci’s onto a winner.