The Hips Have It

The Hips Have It

LONDON — Everyone knows that Christopher Bailey is a hip designer. But as star creative director at Burberry Prorsum , he should know something about hips. Women’s hips.

The collection the designer sent out on Monday had nonstop focus on padded pockets, below a waist that itself was outlined with a belt tied in a bow.

Even when the pockets disappeared, there were peplums, say on a soft, autumnal flowered dress, ensuring that the least favorite part of most women’s anatomy was in focus.

Most women do not love their hips unless they jut out, greyhound style, from a concave stomach. But the only greyhounds in this show were the fanged dogs that served as the fancy handles of umbrellas. They went with other country creatures: gilded fox heads as clasps on handbags; or owls, with their baleful eyes drawn on a T-shirt.

Could umbrellas be the new handbags? It looked that way when the finale lineup was live-streamed — not just with the company’s digitalized effects but also with water showering down the clear tent while the models walked under those fancy umbrellas.

The story of the show was of town and field — roughly translated as city-style studded gloves holding the bags with animal decorations.

There were things to love: tailored coats, those foxy ladies in flared riding skirts or slim dresses (minus the pockets) for the evening. The best of the show was streamlined and with a fine attention to detail. And it was played out in soft autumnal colors from owl feather brown, through petrol blue, blueberry and moss green.

But the hips had it. And surely even the gorgeous Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a Burberry mascot, would prefer some other part of her perfect body to be in focus.