What will Christopher Kane do now that he’s at Mulberry?

The shout of glee at the news that Christopher Kane is the new creative director at Mulberry was practically audible across London this morning. For the crestfallen super-fans of his fizzily ingenious collections, it’s the best possible spirit-lifter. Since he closed his business in 2023, the absence of Kane had felt like almost criminal oversight of a major talent of his generation.

A one-off reminder of what London – and the world – had been missing came in 2024 when Kane collaborated with Self-Portrait on a residency collection. Launched in a riotous hybrid of a 1960s happening, dinner party and fashion shoot with models dancing all over the place, it was also a rallying night for the extended Kane community. The instant sell-through of the collection – an accessible reprise of the hyper-sexy body-con 2006 debut collection which put him on the map – was a pretty accurate signal of just how desirable a designer he’s always been.

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Now, thanks to his hiring by Mulberry CEO Andrea Baldo, the Kane comeback in sight. So far, all that’s known is that Kane and his sister collaborator Tammy are freshly installed at Mulberry’s studio headquarters in Kensington Church Street, working towards a show at London Fashion Week in September. Guaranteed to be a shot in the arm for the city’s schedule, it’s going to be a catwalk return for Mulberry as a brand, too. The company’s ready-to-wear has been absent since its last runway show in February 2017.

Founded by Roger Saul in 1971 in Somerset as a leather goods company, Mulberry still has its roots in the county, where it has two bag and leather goods factories. The name resonates fondly as a British entity, with more recent overlays of the cute, fun, girly shows laid on in Noughties fashion weeks by former creative directors Stuart Vevers, Emma Hill and Jonny Coca.

Predictions of what Kane might do with anything are never that wise. Unpredictability – the surprise element he’s always delivered with every collection – has always been part of the thrill of Kane’s creativity. But let’s have a go. For starters, he is an ace dress designer, perpetually walking the line between eroticism and chic. If there is a need for colourful, quirky, optimistic party dresses for young women to go dancing in, in these dark days, then Kane’s the man. After all, it was his neon-bright bandage and frou-frou first collection that dared hit that mark in 2006, when so much else was black and beige and timidly boring.

His references are guaranteed to be wild – The Planet of the Apes, Princess Margaret “on acid,” Cynthia Payne’s notorious brothel, school biology textbooks, religious cults, Frankenstein and Masters and Johnston’s The Joy of Sex books have all been in the mix in the past. The way it turns out is always developed with incredible techniques, invented by the Kanes, and yet always, somehow, wearable.

Where would the Mulberryness get infused into all of this? Kane-ologists would have no worries about that. Underpinning his collections in daywear, Kane has always worked in shearling-trimmed biker jackets and patent leather sheepskin coats (Mulberry heartland.) He has always designed arrays of amazing coats. And right from the beginning, he’s worked his magic with knits, first of all with the Scottish cashmere company Johnstons of Elgin.

All of this promises a combination of hot fashion and outdoorsy everyday practicality. Which could be very much fun for a blast of fresh British Mulberry air come September. Whatever it is, Kane will be aiming high. And always, you can tether that back to the words of his late, monumentally influential mentor Professor Louise Wilson OBE, who would sit behind her desk at Central Saint Martin’s MA department and command: “Impress me.”