Tory Burch has traded in the decorum of embroidered linen handkerchiefs, as seen on her spring runway, for the freedom and adventure of printed cotton bandanas. Burch looked to Amelia Earhart for inspiration for prefall. “She was such a pioneer,” the designer said at a showroom appointment. “I’m attracted to her fearlessness and her entrepreneurship.” Little known fact: Earhart had her own lifestyle line, decades before her time. Fascinatingly, she not only designed the clothes she wore in the cockpit, but also produced a collection of practically-minded garments for Macy’s. The label financed her expeditions.
The shift from dainty to daring, while subtler than it’s being made out to be here, suits Burch and her design instincts. Though she’s the quintessence of uptown polish, Burch has her sportif side, too, and the casual clothes she’s produced this season have a confident aplomb. Earhart’s trademark leather bomber jacket was elegantly rendered with a ribbed knit hem, and her penchant for scarves, an essential element in the aviator’s uniform, was represented in various bandana treatments, including a pajama set in a vivid kelly green and a belted jumpsuit with one-and-done ease. A woman could get a lot of mileage out of a jumpsuit like that. “No borders, only horizons,” Burch intoned in her showroom. It’s a phrase she has pinned to a wall in her office. A slip dress interpreted Earhart’s flair for scarf dressing in a different way: in silk and on the bias with a trompe l’oeil neckline. It was just the tiniest bit dainty, and quite pretty, too.
