Tory Burch was very matter-of-fact in describing the inspiration behind her latest collection. "I was thinking about a military jacket," she said. "It was a hand-me-down from my mother." Sometimes, not much inspiration is more than enough. Thinking about a military jacket triggered some synaptic charge toward ethnic patterns, and that in turn led to a lot of meditation on texture and ways to interpret print through three-dimensional techniques such as weaving, beading, and flocking. "I liked the idea of that military coat worn over vibrant, ethnic-inspired pieces," Burch elaborated.
Aside from the military coats, which Burch executed in gently oversize shapes, the focus here was on knitwear and on beading. The beading was emphatic—attested to by the weight of a peasant-y, olive-colored dress, among other much-embroidered-upon garments. The knits, meanwhile, provided similar graphic effects but via intarsia; looks such as a pencil-slim, tile-patterned knit suit came off polished yet cozy. They'll do very well at retail. Elsewhere, there was a lot of charm to be found in this collection's details, to wit, the plum velvet trim limning an olive drab coat or the way a pattern of distressed beads was mirrored against the same pattern, in bright red flock. She used a similar trick, too, in one of her strongest looks, which set a skirt of red-toned woven raffia against an intarsia knit top that mimicked its weave. All in all, Burch's ever-so-humble starting point for this collection led her in rich and varied directions.
