Mulberry returns to the London schedule on 20 September with a Christopher Kane debut, first reported by WWD, and the clothes reach shops in January. The first date is a creative announcement. The second is an invoice, and it falls due in a category the house has never sold at scale.

The turnaround that paid for the slot was arithmetic. Revenue rose 4% to £125.5 million in the year to March while the pre-tax loss narrowed from £32.2 million to £8.9 million, on £11.2 million of cost reduction and a gross margin lifted five points by declining to discount. Nine shops closed to get there.

Franchise and wholesale revenue grew 33% over that same year, then 56% in the thirteen weeks that followed, on new doors at John Lewis, Liberty, Flannels and Harvey Nichols. The resale arm, Mulberry Exchange, grew 46%. Andrea Baldo’s published ambition is £200 million of revenue at a 15% EBIT margin, and none of those levers is ready-to-wear.

The current year began faster still. Group revenue rose 23% in the thirteen weeks to 27 June, with like-for-like growth in double digits across every region. That is a leather goods business recovering on its own, which is the strongest available argument against needing a clothing line at all.

Cost discipline can save a business; it cannot make anyone want what the business sells.

Mulberry’s clothes were never quite Mulberry’s business. The house let its ready-to-wear and footwear licences with Onward Luxury Group lapse in 2020, a decision available only to a company that had not been making them. Ending the licence cost Mulberry a royalty. Resuming the category costs it an inventory position.

Kane was appointed creative director of women’s ready-to-wear in March, and the last Mulberry ready-to-wear was Johnny Coca’s autumn/winter 2020, which makes this a six-year absence. Six years is long enough for a customer to file the name under handbags. Handbags carry no size curve, which is most of why they were the business in the first place. The collection lands in January, when the rest of the market is marking down.

The balance sheet is not built for patience with a new category. Net liabilities widened to £21.1 million from £12.3 million, and the accounts now run a reverse stress test against covenant breaches. A company that has already priced its own downside is about to add a category with no track record to price.

Clothing was worth under a tenth of turnover when Mulberry last had it, and the trade press has read the return as Britishness restored to the heart of the revival. The reading is generous. A tenth of turnover is what clothes were worth while another company carried the stock; it says nothing about what they are worth when Mulberry carries it.

The show therefore has two possible jobs, and they belong in different budgets. If the clothes exist to make the bags desirable, this is marketing, and it should be priced as marketing. Should they instead be carrying a material share of the gap to £200 million, Mulberry is entering at its own risk a business it once preferred to rent. Baldo calls it a new chapter for ready-to-wear. Chapters are cheaper than categories.