Anyone expecting rubberized lace or lava dresses at Christopher Kane’s Mulberry debut had reason to think otherwise after a glance at his Instagram account. Ahead of the beloved London designer’s highly anticipated runway return, three years after closing his namesake label, he posted a tightly cropped reel of an axe stripping bark from a tree. The gesture suggested an arborist’s intervention: clearing away loose bark to allow the tree to flourish anew. It was an apt metaphor for Mulberry’s first runway show in nearly a decade. Gone were the fantastical Claridge’s sets of the British heritage brand’s 2010s It Brit heyday, when giant mushrooms and inflatable monsters decorated the runway and Alexa Chung and Kate Moss were among the front-row regulars. In its place: the hulking Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a convention hall furnished with rows of plain office chairs.
The Bayswater, Mulberry’s iconic structured top-handle bag named for the posh London neighborhood, remained the star of the show—perhaps even more so without all the runway theatrics. Its distinctive flap, with semicircular cutouts framing the handles, became a recurring motif, its curved contours translated into the ready...