London Fashion Week: Burberry brings back vintage check

Unfazed by the London subway attack, celebrities, models and fashion editors flocked to London Fashion Week on Saturday to celebrate all things stylish.

Designers showcasing their latest visions included luxury heritage brand Burberry, fashion week veteran Jasper Conran and rising star Simone Rocha.

BURBERRY BRINGS BACK THE CHECK

Remember the Burberry check, so ubiquitous and widely copied in the early 2000s that it became a fashion faux pas? It's back this season, in a big way.

Models wear creations by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

The vintage brown check is everywhere on Burberry's new season runway: on baseball caps, oversized tote bags and belted coats for both men and women. And that's just one of many themes designer Christopher Bailey featured this season. There's tartan, reimagined military coats and riding shirts, plastic outerwear, sheer embroidered dresses, plus cosy pink faux fur coats.

If that sounds like a lot, it was deliberately meant to be so. Bailey said he wanted to celebrate the "sheer glorious eccentricity of the British way of dressing," and delivered an unexpectedly sassy, street-wise mix of a collection in an 18th-century London courthouse, a fitting venue with its raw exposed walls and huge chandeliers.

The opening look had it all: Brown check baseball cap, pastel turquoise plastic raincoat, patchwork print knits, worn with a single huge earring.

A model wears a creation by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Everything was worn with an air of "anything goes" insouciance — a delicate embroidered gown is paired with a loose T-shirt or slouchy scarf — and there is a throwaway sexiness in a tartan skirt that, when the model turns around, reveals the back was sheer plastic. Bailey said he had his models tell him if they liked the outfits, and adjust them if they felt they were "too done or too sophisticated."

Supermodels Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell were among those who turned up for the show, which was staged together with — and inspired by — an exhibition of 20th-century photography showing portraits of British life.

A model wears a creation by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears a creation by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

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ANIMAL RIGHTS PROTESTERS TARGET BURBERRY

Guests attending Burberry's catwalk show have found their usual red carpet welcome replaced by heckling protesters.

Several dozen animal rights activists made a loud racket Saturday outside the luxury brand's show venue in London's Clerkenwell area, crowding around the entrance and shouting "Shame on London Fashion Week!"

A model wears a creation by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Some held devices showing animal cruelty videos and others held placards reading "Fur is passé."

Police and security guards ended up forming two human chains to allow guests, including U.S. Vogue editor Anna Wintour, to enter and exit the show.

While Burberry isn't known to use more fur than other designers, it was likely targeted because it typically stages London Fashion Week's most high-profile shows.

A model wears a creation by fashion house Burberry, during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

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BRIGHT HUES AT JASPER CONRAN

What to wear to counter the fickle, wet weather that England is so famous for? Jasper Conran has the answer: cheerful, bright rain macs and sheer sport-luxe outfits with colors plucked straight from the crayon box.

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Conran, who heads a design and retail empire of everything from wallpaper to a hotel, chose a thirst-quenching palette on Saturday for his show at London Fashion Week. Vivid hues of cobalt clashed with yellow, chartreuse and grapefruit pink, balanced with shades of earthy mustard and warm ochre.

Anoraks and lightweight bomber jackets were layered over see-through dresses and separates. Conran made sure to keep things feminine by pairing the sporty clothes with ladylike handbags and pretty sandals.

Models wear creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

A model wears creations by designer Jasper Conran during their Spring/Summer 2018 runway show at London Fashion Week in London, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

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SIMONE ROCHA REIMAGINES THE DOLLHOUSE

Simone Rocha, one of London's closely-watched emerging young talents, chose an austere wood-paneled hall with stained glass windows for her quirky take on childhood fantasies and innocence.

Models wore clothes that piled on everything a young girl may wish for her dolls: miles of elaborate white ruffles and Victorian lace, adorned with bows, pearls and sparkly embroidered flowers.

Some models even clutched slouchy bags like a child would cuddle its blanket comforter.

But Rocha nicely offset the saccharine bows and pearls with modern, sculptural silhouettes and clumpy, conventionally ugly shoes like "flatforms" and furry pool sliders.
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LONDON (AP) — The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight wryly welcomed journalists last week to the “millionth” press briefing on his court case.

Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, was only half joking. Assange’s legal saga has dragged on for well over a decade but it could come to an end in the U.K. as soon as Monday.

Assange faces a hearing in London's High Court that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges, or provide him another chance to appeal his extradition.

The outcome will depend on how much weight judges give to reassurances U.S. officials have provided that Assange's rights won't be trampled if he goes on trial.

Here's a look at the case:

Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges over Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010.

Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He faces 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.

Assange and his supporters argue he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing and is protected under press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Among the files published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

“Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing and communicating information to the public of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. government,” his wife, Stella Assange, said. “Reporting a crime is never a crime.”

U.S. lawyers say Assange is guilty of trying to hack the Pentagon computer and that WikiLeaks’ publications created a “grave and imminent risk” to U.S. intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While the U.S. criminal case against Assange was only unsealed in 2019, his freedom has been restricted for a dozen years.

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country.

He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.

Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange has remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison while the extradition battle with the U.S. continues.

His wife said his mental and physical health have deteriorated behind bars.

“He’s fighting to survive and that’s a daily battle,” she said.

A judge in London initially blocked Assange’s transfer to the U.S. in 2021 on the grounds he was likely to kill himself if held in harsh American prison conditions.

But subsequent courts cleared the way for the move after U.S. authorities provided assurances he wouldn’t experience the severe treatment that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The British government authorized Assange's extradition in 2022.

Assange's lawyers raised nine grounds for appeal at a hearing in February, including the allegation that his prosecution is political.

The court accepted three of his arguments, issuing a provisional ruling in March that said Assange could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. provided those reassurances three weeks later, though his supporters are skeptical.

Stella Assange said the “so-called assurances” were made up of “weasel words.”

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said the judges had asked if Assange could rely on First Amendment protections.

“It should be an easy yes or no question,” Hrafnsson said. “The answer was, ‘He can seek to rely on First Amendment protections.’ That is a ‘no.’ So the only rational decision on Monday is for the judges to come out and say, ‘This is not good enough.’ Anything else is a judicial scandal.”

If Assange prevails, it would set the stage for an appeal process likely to further drag out the case.

If an appeal is rejected, his legal team plans to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene. But his supporters fear Assange could possibly be transferred before the court in Strasbourg, France, could halt his removal.

“Julian is just one decision away from being extradited,” his wife said.

Assange, who hopes to be in court Monday, has been encouraged by the work others have done in the political fight to free him, his wife said.

If he loses in court, he still may have another shot at freedom.

President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials have no other details but Stella Assange said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.

FILE - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being taken from court, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London, Wednesday May 1, 2019. Assange faces what could be his final court hearing in England over whether he should be extradited to the United States to face spying charges. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)