BEAUTY: Clothing--Burberry

For London Fashion Week, Burberry presented a curious FW '21-'22 menswear collection which included kilts/skirts and some head-tilting, subtle symbology that looks like it comes from initiation rits of secret order traditions like the Masons. Indeed, the film of the collection felt a bit like watching one of Matthew Barney's CREMASTER films (and that is a compliment--I am a huge Matthew Barney fan and saw the entire CREMASTER cycle at the Guggenheim years ago).

But Burberry creative director Riccardo Tisci has a more "innocent" statement which seems totally incomplete. Maybe he is playing like Mrs. Prada and being deliberately coy about the true inspiration for the collection.

"The collection gently challenges and subtly reinvents traditions, inviting freedom of expression. Tailoring has a sense of twisted classicism, whilst quintessential house codes – the trench coat and Burberry beige – are evolved. Details and decoration evoke the notion of ceremony through badges and adornments – symbolising community and friendship, codes of belonging. 'For my first Burberry menswear-focused collection, I wanted to celebrate the freedom of expression. Enclosed indoors, I dreamt of the outdoors and its beauty, fuelled by the thought of the creativity that comes when we are together.'"

https://www.burberry.com/