Burberry goes for heart and soil

Designer Christopher Bailey has no reason to be melancholy: after all, Burberry is one of the few brands seemingly immune to the credit crunch. Yet there was a melancholy tone to this show, evoked in no small part by the weepy soundtrack, which included ponderous love songs by Slade and Bryan Ferry.

You sensed that Yorkshireman Bailey had been spending a lot of time in the country; pottering around in the garden, perhaps, or going on long, bracing walks. The colours - moss green, slate blue, mushroom, sage, lavender and stone - evoked an English country garden; not in high summer so much as early spring, and glanced through a window in the dawn's first light. There was a horticultural theme to the fabrics. The classic Burberry trench was reworked in soft brown washed leather, fastened with leather cutouts of fluttering flowers.

A sage green chiffon dress came in a ditsy floral print, and a simple woollen vest dress was embroidered with butterflies. Then there was the Gardener bag, a capacious patchwork leather tote with burnished silver hardware that was far too fancy for storing your trowel and muddy gloves in.

After pushing tough, hard-edged glamour for a couple of seasons, Bailey swung completely in the opposite direction for next spring with fluttering chiffon dresses, droopy cardigans and dip-dyed trench coats in soft pastel hues. This is what fashion does, of course, and yet this romantic, whimsical notion of womanhood seems to be where Bailey's heart is. The delicacy of the washedout cottons, the crumpled linens and the ultra-fine wools evoked a fragility, which seemed pleasingly fresh and new compared with the stud and leather-fest that currently sets the pace in fashion.

After a winter of sweating in leather trousers and tottering around in fetishistic heels, we will all be in need of a breezy, comfy new look. If the collection could be summed up in one word, it would be " soulful". It felt as though it had a heart to it.

Despite being the star of Burberry's current advertising campaign, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley did not model in the show, although Agyness Deyn did firmly ending rumours that she had been ousted by Huntington-Whiteley in Burberry's affections.