AT BURBERRY'S SPRING 2016 SHOW, MUSIC TAKES CENTER STAGE, LITERALLY

A look from Burberry's spring 2016 collection. Photo: Imaxtree

I have never seen Burberry's internal branding documents, but I imagine British heritage, trench coats, craftsmanship, digital innovation and music top its list of brand pillars.

It's the last of these that has come into focus at Burberry in the past couple of years especially. The brand usually invites up-and-coming British singers to perform at its shows; it has also thrown several private concerts and has a dedicated Acoustic section on its website, featuring original videos from a selection of artists. Just last week, Burberry became the first fashion brand tolaunch an Apple Music channel, allowing subscribers of Apple's $9.99/month streaming music service to access playlists and music videos created by the company. And so it was symbolic Monday when Burberry re-engineered its runway venue in Hyde Park so that Alison Moyet and a 32-piece orchestra were positioned at a circular pit in its center, the runway winding around each side. Moyet's deep voice and romantic lyrics added an emotional vibrancy to the looks that showed during her four-song set.

Live music is just one way Burberry casts a spell at its shows — there's also the greenhouse-like Hyde Park venue, with its view of the gilded Albert Memorial; the uber-polite publicists; and, of course, the front row, which this season featured Cara Delevingne and an exquisitely pale Annie Clark (St. Vincent) side by side, as well as fellow Burberry faces Kate Moss, Jourdan Dunn and Suki Waterhouse; and Sienna Miller, Benedict and Sophie Cumberbatch. The Australian director Baz Luhrmann, who hopped over from Ireland to join his pal Anna Wintour at a number of shows on Monday, sat alongside the Vogue editor.

Burberry tends to show predominantly outerwear on the runway — it remains the company's big moneymaker — and the elaborately quilted, embroidered and appliquéd coats of seasons past were replaced by coats that mixed urban and military influences: black nylon trenches with gold buttons and topstitching; wool coats and capes with gold cording and crested buttons; and leather jackets with metallic zippers and piping. They were more casual than Burberry's usual runway fare and, as such, it was the dresses and separates that took center stage, and the offering there was quite eclectic: lingerie dresses and separates in black lace; white and pastel broderie anglaise dresses — some with long satin skirts — that ran the gamut from sweet to evening elegant. Streetwear was thrown into the mix in the form of silky, wide-legged pants, a double-layered navy sweatshirt and criss-cross fussbett sandals adorned with heavy gold chains that matched the hardware on several handbags.

Burberry models carried monogrammed backpacks at Monday's show, which were available for pre-order immediately after the live-stream ended. Photo: Imaxtree

Burberry also introduced what it's hoping will be the sequel to its enormously popular personalized ponchos: waterproof nylon backpacks monogrammed with gold initials, which appeared with most of the looks. These weren't as attractive as the ponchos by a long shot, but that will hardly matter: Burberry will get them on all the right models (and thus, into street style shots) during Paris Fashion Week. The leather jackets have that potential too — and they look really good.