Christopher Kane came back, and Mulberry came home
The Scottish designer whose label collapsed in 2023 reopened London Fashion Week with a leather-heavy debut for Mulberry — the first collection of a turnaround that CEO Andrea Baldo has been building for a year.
Three years after his own label shut down, Christopher Kane got a standing ovation. His first collection for Mulberry, titled City Town Country, showed Sunday afternoon at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, and the reaction in the room — whoops, applause, a section of the audience on its feet — was reported out on Monday as the story of London Fashion Week.
It was two comebacks in one show. Kane closed his eponymous business in 2023 after financial trouble, surfacing only for a capsule with Self-Portrait in 2024. Mulberry, meanwhile, had not shown at London Fashion Week since 2017 and has spent several years posting the kind of results that make a British heritage label look like a candidate for quiet decline.
The clothes leaned into what Mulberry actually sells. Leather ran through the collection: square-necked minidresses cut entirely from it, gray leather suiting with geometric cutouts, tab-fastened coats that left deliberate gaps of skin. The cutout lines echoed the hardware geometry of the Bayswater, turning the house's most recognizable bag into a motif across ready-to-wear. Kane also reworked existing bags in richer textures and introduced two new silhouettes.
Kane was hired earlier this year by CEO Andrea Baldo, formerly of Ganni, who has been rebuilding Mulberry's positioning since arriving. "Christopher's vision really speaks to the codes of the house whilst moving the brand into a new era," Baldo said after the show — the standard line, delivered for once with evidence behind it.
What makes the debut commercially interesting is its restraint. Kane built a reputation on provocation, and he said backstage that he stripped things back this time. The result read as wearable, grown-up, and, crucially, accessory-forward — which is where the margin lives for a house that is a leather goods business before it is a runway one.
London needed a win this week. Alexander McQueen brought its show back from Paris the same evening amid a stark restructuring, and the week's subtext has been whether British fashion can still hold its own talent. Kane's answer arrived first.
Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →
