It all started with a pair of her father’s corduroys. Tory Burch, like other designers this season, was looking for a way forward in what feels like a world in chaos. The animating question, she explained backstage, was “what endures?” Working through her answer, she said she turned to things that were familiar, like her dad’s well-loved trousers, which are about as utilitarian and unpretentious as clothes can get, and set about reinterpreting them in her own way. Cut with a bit of slouch, the wide wale pants appeared twice in her fall lineup, teamed with crewneck sweaters and round collar button-ups, the sleeves on both pushed up to the elbows in an everyday, getting-down-to-business way.
If that was a safer-than-usual starting point, as she alluded in a pre-show conversation, it didn’t come off as boring. Burch has a good eye for the kind of distinguishing detail that can turn a familiar piece into a special one, like the gold threadwork badla embroidery on otherwise humble wool shetland cardigans, or the sumptuous metallic-shot landscape jacquards she used for a pair of enveloping cocoon coats. Among other small pleasures here were silver fish pins and pendant necklaces, woven raffia and leather basket bags modeled on what Burch and her high school friends used to call Deadhead bags, and embellished ankle strap pumps. She may have single-handedly turned the woven leather belt into an It item, too.
Bunny Mellon, the landscape designer of Jackie Kennedy’s White House rose garden and the former owner of Burch’s Antigua estate, also presided over the collection. The Bunny knot motif on quilted bags was named in her honor, and a sort of bygone mid-century elegance seemed to inform some of the silhouettes. Shirtwaist dresses with jaunty bows at the neck were cut roomy enough to garden in. Stonewashed silk shifts with bakelite-looking hip belts appeared to channel an even earlier era, as did the deconstructed drop-waist flapper dresses, the collection’s odd off-note. Then, towards the end, fine gauge nearly sheer ribbed knits brought things smack-bang back to the here and now. What will endure? Quite a lot of what came down this runway tonight.