‘Experimental’ is not a word used over the last 20 years to describe designer Tory Burch [IG]. When she presented her Fall 2024 collection at the New York Public Library last February, a new adjective arose to describe Burch — one we love. The word was ‘daring’.

Vogue Runway summed up the Fall 2024 Tory Burch collection, writing: “Let’s just say she’s come a long way from the people-pleasing crystal embellished tunics and Reva flats that were her earliest successes.”

The skirt shapes above and below — affectionately called ‘lampshade’ dressing — illustrate Vogue’s Nicole Phelps’ point.

The Fall 2024 campaign photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth [IG]in Lisbon, Portugal plays with light and quiet joy. It captures Tory Burch’s new word — which is good — because fashion hammers the same words to death. We need some new words — in this case ‘sublime’.

“I was thinking: ‘How do you make the everyday sublime,’” Burch said backstage in February. The new campaign seeks to capture the perfection of an ordinary fashion moment — and elevate it in images featuring models Chu Wong, Mona Tougaard and Vittoria Ceretti just soaking in the moment.

Fashion is not known for deep breathing and quietude [how do you like that one, dear friends!]

Nor is fashion known for giggles, because joy is generally not permitted in fashion images. Not to plug Vogue again, but with their focus on weddings, they have added some joy in fashion world. Gratitude expressed. Brian Molloy works as stylist on the campaign, with Burch serving as creative director and Massimiliano Bomba as director.

Burch credits Covid downtime as part of the catalyst — or a rare pause —to consider what her brand was actually about. With her marriage to former LVMH executive Pierre-Yves Roussel, now CEO at the company, the designer was free to focus on design and emotion.

One imagines that it’s a very inspiring mind-meld when the man who adores you was a top executive at LVMH and championed placing Phoebe Philo at Celine and Jonathan Anderson at Loewe. Just sayin’.

Moving backwards to fashion lampshades, AOC nods to Tory Burch’s childhood education and exposure to Quaker beliefs and culture in Philadelphia. The Quaker community is deeply committed to honoring American craft and a bedrock Shaker maxim that ‘beauty rests in utility’.

Burch has frequently referenced the impact of Quaker practices and philosophy on her growth into young womanhood. The intellectual expression of youth and values — especially sisterhood — is a quiet theme that ebbs through Tory Burch’s work.

Her current focus on the future and becoming more design ‘daring’ is both inspiring and exciting for humans who watch the evolution of America’s second-youngest, self-made female billionaire, when she became one in 2013.