In the streets and cafes of London, there is a lot of talk about the possibility of a Brexit — Britain’s leaving the European Union, to be decided June 23 in a national referendum — with Prime Minister David Cameron pleading to stay and the London mayor, Boris Johnson,announcing on Sunday that he’s for leaving.

But in the microcosm that is fashionland, it’s all about the Burbexit.You know: Burberry’s announcement this month that it is upending the fashion system, and that, come September, it will show season-nonspecific clothes that will be immediately for sale.The two are not unrelated.After all, when the dominant topic in a country is about rejecting the rules — when the world is divided into Ins and Outs — it is little wonder fashion brands start taking stock and deciding it is time to turn away from ye olde group dynamic and do what works for them.red prom dresses

So Monday saw a Burberry show in transition; some pieces can be pre-ordered from the brand’s website and from its Regent Street store on Tuesday. And while it felt a little nostalgic — helped in part by the angsty crooning of Jake Bugg, playing live — it had the effect of casting the rest of the recent shows in a somewhat different light.

Just as with the stay-or-go referendum, the question of whether a brand should show now and sell now, or show now but sell later, is highlighting a division in fashion, between brands conceived to dress up the status quo and brands conceived to challenge it.

Burberry is firmly in the first camp, as evinced by its two-tone parade of “things I love,” in the words of Christopher Bailey, its chief executive and chief creative officer. In practice, that meant mainly swinging ‘60s Lurex or lamé jacquard minidresses contrasting with tough outerwear, from military greatcoats to suede peacoats to a snakeskin trench. Plus a few trousers, and a panoply of patchwork accessories.

For the second, however, see J.W. Anderson. “Often, you need silhouettes and collections to marinate; you need to get used to them,” said the designer the day after his show of space-age tunics and trousers traced in zippers, cloudlike tiered and ruffled miniskirts, fur hoodies and stiff satin jackets with the lines of a rocket ship. “If these hit the stores tomorrow, they could sink,” he said. “But I’m not interested in accessibility. I’m interested in clothes that are very good, or very bad.”

A lot of the collection looked outré (though dissociate those satin flocked trapeze jackets from the chamois cloud skirts they were paired with, and put them over a pair of black skinny pants, and suddenly they take on a whole new vibe), but it had its own frenetic energy. Glance again, and again, and it is easy to imagine the orbital leather-trimmed skirts and the studded white shirts becoming something of a thing.

More of a thing, anyway, than last season’s 1980s — though, case in point, that baton has now been assumed by Gareth Pugh, who went back to the decade of Mugler and Montana with an ode to the power suit, all stars and shoulders and strength-through-seams (Anya Hindmarch went there, too, a bit, with a Pac-Man-inspired show of rainbow pixelated bags and fur coats, googly-eyed backpacks and video-game striped suedes). Increasingly, we seem ready to reinvent that period in history.

By contrast, the slouchy suiting at Paul Smith, whether covered in metallic florals or select paisleys, and the pirate maidens, all military braid capes and lacy tiers, at Temperley London, were aesthetically available — simply another translation of what had come before. They were an easy ask on the part of a shopper looking for a new frock (or frock coat), but they lacked the urgency, or the danger, of the new.

Which side Mulberry will join under its new creative director, Johnny Coca, is still unclear. On the one hand, his debut of neat topstitched military-inspired wool capes and coats trod a familiar British heritage line, as did the muddy 1970s colors, minimal trousers and pleated shirtdresses.

Things took a more interesting turn for the kitsch, however, in ruffled tuxedo shirting in leather and sheer chiffon (a leather tuxedo shirtdress also showing up in Mary Katrantzou’s psychedelic Western hoedown of tweed ’n’ tulle), overblown orange roses on anoraks and slip dresses, big fishnet knits, and just-this-side-of trashy baby-doll dresses. Ditto the bags, one for almost every look, which ranged from the expansive to the minuscule, the structured to the squishy.

They’ll push the right buttons, as did Roksanda’s rich combination of Renaissance shades and midbrow ’70s shapes. And if Erdem’s Hitchcock-meets-Hattie Carnegie-meets-Rita Hayworth ode to veiled suspense and the aroma of the lily was occasionally too cloying, the floral tweeds, pearl-and-gold fringed pencil skirt with matching sweater and a strapless black velvet sheath embroidered with trumpet blooms carried with them their own atmosphere.

They were effective, even if they didn’t have the gut-punch resonance of Simone Rocha’s black and cream and pink and red exploration of motherhood and femininity — she had a baby in the middle of preparing the collection — as seen in tinsel tweeds (heritage fabrics bristling softly with a golden sheen), embroidered gauze and unfinished knits. The clothes were intricate and ornate without any of the traditional weight associated with the words, full of big volumes as light as soap bubbles as well as a nod to the loss of control that comes with being a parent.

Sleeves dropped from shoulders and puffed out at the elbow à la courtly dress, jewels traced and dripped down the breasts, pockets drooped and dresses split open at the back.

Pregnancy is, in many ways, a lesson about anticipation, the need for patience and the associated joy that comes in the end. Before it surrenders to the demands of immediacy and, well, throws the baby out with the bathwater, fashion might take note.Read more at:http://www.marieprom.co.uk/sexy-prom-dresses