No review of Burberry’s show in London this week makes sense without some scene setting. Building a brand isn’t just about the clothes. It’s about the aspirations, the advertising, the celebrities, the fizz and the pheromones that make the air around the catwalk crackle, infecting the 1,300 guests and, ultimately, spreading the virus.

London doesn’t see a branded show like this very often. It may never have seen one. Designers here have always known how to put on a great spectacle with a frisson of menace . But to have the pavements around Tate Britain (the show marquee was next door) covered with cream carpet, to see crash barriers and floodlights, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler, Emma Watson, Victoria Beckham, Mary-Kate Olsen, Frida Pinto and Dev Patel, Peter Mandelson (he’s getting hooked on this fashion thing methinks), Samantha Cameron and an entire front row of international fashion editors who normally skip London fashion week — that was something new.

At the centre were the clothes: a paen to the trench coat which the visionary Thomas Burberry invented in 1901, although he probably never envisioned it veiled beneath layers of Grecian goddess style drapes or covered with silver confetti sequins or micro-sliced into teeny, beautiful aqua or lemon evening trench-dresses. The pale taupe suede versions, complete with a pleated puffball skirt and a side serving of ruched sleeves would probably have surprised him too. There were other ideas — a series of reef notes worked into the hems of chiffon skirts and the peplums of jackets, as well as the first sighting in a long time of the famous check that caused the image problems that are now far behind this label. Combining British whimsy and romance with a glamorous power-brand that sits in the Footsie 100 is not easy, but Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s Creative Director conclusively proved it can be done.

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