Tory Burch took a trip to Carnaby Street this season. Much of the look of this collection can be inferred just by conjuring the instant associations with that reference—the trim peacoats, the miniskirts, the schoolboy check. Burch did a nice job here of giving that familiar mod style a personal inflection. One of the nicest touches was the most personal: the Chelsea boots and low-heeled loafers with leather crisscrossing the toe, a design she stole from a pair of shoes her father designed years ago. Beyond that, though, there was her interpolation of the signature Tory Burch bohemian vibe, witnessed in the collection's attractive paisleys, curlicue embroidery on cotton tops and ones in silk organza, and prints and jacquards in a quasi-pointillist pattern loosely inspired by Sigmar Polke. The ur-mod items, meanwhile, were updated via materials: A grid-check cotton-wool blend, bonded to a lightweight technical fabric, seemed just right for the shifting temps of the Pre-Fall season. Another standout textile was found in Burch's selection of rather laid-back eveningwear. Full-skirted gowns in the Polke-inspired print were of a silk jacquard that read as heavy, given the structure, but upon closer inspection turned out to be diaphanous, barely there. That added to the gowns' casual mien. Burch herself captured the collection's overall tone well, and pithily, when asked what drew her to Carnaby this time around—as she put it, she liked the era's fusion of ease and decorum and its "spiritedness." All those elements were at work here, in signature Burch-y ways.
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