Tory Burch Spring / Summer 2019 Ready-To-Wear Collection

Reva Robinson looked as fabulous in all black and sunglasses on the front row of her daughter’s show in the garden of the Smithsonian as she must have done in her youth. The mother of Tory Burch served as muse for the collection on Friday morning, or rather, she and her husband Buddy’s nonchalant parenting did.

For six weeks every summer in the 1960s and 70s, they’d leave Tory and her brother on their Georgian kennel farm in Pennsylvania – with only their grandmother and
35 German Shepherds to keep them company – while the Robinsons sailed around the Mediterannean, from Italy and Greece to Morocco and Spain. “I lived outside on the farm. Total tomboy,” Burch reminisced. “And then they came back with their treasures.”

It was these trinkets from another universe, worlds away from her American childhood in Valley Forge, that inspired Burch’s spring/summer 2019 garments. And you could imagine what the rich embroideries, lace and jingle-jangle must have looked like through child eyes. She referred to the look as “laidback” and it ticked many of the boxes known from the gap-year category: poplin and gauze caftans, twill and silk tunics, embellished chiffon, safari shirts, and flared denim trousers, each piece jazzed up either by way of rustling strands of coins, intricate crochet or the delicate lace panels, which Burch interweaved with words like “integrity,” “passion,” and “excellence.”

Those words served as reminders that even upbringings as casual and alternative as that of this designer can create a fashion mogul like Burch. And in these woke times when all aspects of the way we lead and shape our lives – and the lives of our children – are being revaluated, it was a nice homage to 1970s’ values and the wardrobe that came with them. Asked if her parents really never took her with them on holiday, Burch laughed. “Never! They had this expression, which sounds awful: ‘Children should be seen and not heard.’ They actually didn’t believe that, but they liked to travel and they had this serious romance.” For her finale, Burch played Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson, and stopped to give her mother a huge hug.