CHRISTOPHER Kane’s return to the London runway arrives with the same peculiar charge of a homecoming, but his debut for Mulberry is less an exercise in nostalgia than an act of renewal. Appointed creative director of women’s ready-to-wear earlier this year, Kane was brought in by CEO Andrea Baldo to reconnect the house with its British identity while pushing it beyond its established accessories offering. His first collection, titled City Town Country, makes a persuasive case for the appointment: recognisably Kane yet unmistakably Mulberry.
Thankfully, on first glance, Kane’s signature playfulness has survived the move into a much larger institution. The collection is sexy and graphic, occasionally mischievous, but never feels like a greatest-hits exercise of either himself or the Mulberry. Square-necked leather mini dresses, geometric cut-outs, oversized bags and sharp footwear retain the irreverence that once defined his own label, while school uniforms, rugby shirts, parkas and football references bring a distinctly British vernacular into focus.
At the centre of it all is the mulberry tree: both arriving as a literal origin story and also an elegant metaphor. Founder Roger Saul named the company after the trees he saw from the train to school. Kane takes that small detail and runs with it, introducing the image of the axe as an emblem of cutting back to encourage new growth. It appears on a T-shirt, becomes the severe metal heel of a shoe, and takes shape in The Chop, a new curved shoulder bag. There is something characteristically Kane about this leap from horticulture to hardware, and we have missed that dark humour for three years now.
Leather, naturally, becomes the collection’s common thread. For Mulberry, it is both material and heritage; for Kane, it offers the precision and sensuality that have long been central to his work. The most clever pieces make no distinction between the two. A white leather dress is constructed from horizontal tiers shaped like the flap of the Bayswater, transforming one of Mulberry’s most recognisable signatures into a garment without resorting to overt branding or logomania.
This approach extends throughout the collection: Bayswater geometry migrates onto coats, tailoring and knitwear; the Postman’s Lock appears on belts and shoes; heritage checks inform the palette; archival pieces are revived with remarkably little interference – e.g., a 1980s raincoat is retained almost exactly as Saul originally designed it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
The pleasure of this debut is ultimately in the balance. Kane has not abandoned the eccentricity, sensuality or humour that made his work so distinctive. Instead, he has found a house whose history gives those instincts somewhere new to go. Mulberry, meanwhile, gets something more valuable than reinvention: a designer willing to look closely at what already exists, pull it apart, and discover what might grow from it next. A seed has been sown.
by Imogen Clark
Runway images: Iker Aldama