It's hard not to call a collection inspired by ice pops sweet, and Emma Hill's Spring 2013 offering for Mulberry — what with its buttery leather, pastel-colored garments, and floral prints — definitely fits that sugary description.
The flowers helped tie the collection to another source of inspiration: an English country garden. The entrance to Hill's runway show on Tuesday was filled with garden gnomes and AstroTurf to reflect that feeling.
But the clothes themselves weren't what you'd call delicate. There was a strength in a number of leather pieces (even if they had flower-shaped metal buttons) and a definite toughness to the tweed biker jackets that came down the runway. And for all their flora, the '60s- and '70s-inspired suiting and dresses packed a bold visual appeal that wallflowers might shy away from. How else could they handle being walked down the runway with a couple of happy standard poodles?
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Mulberry's Del Rey bag reveals that the company's factory workers listen to Lana Del Rey's music while they produce her namesake tote. The singer's hit "Summertime Sadness" plays in the background of the video below, which shows artisans painstakingly sewing together the bag. But it's also what's playing in the headphones of the Mulberry employee who performs one of the bag's final checks. A bag named after a singer actually infused with one of her songs? Now that's branding. A look at the process below.
In a way—or three—Mulberry's new Bryn bags wink at the brand's recent popularity. In the past few years, the 44-year-old label's reached the level of taking waiting list orders for its handbags. Thanks, in part, to celebrity fans like Alexa Chung and 
