Christopher Kane's debut as creative director of Mulberry was the event I most wanted to see in London. The Brutalist Queen Elizabeth II conference hall in Parliament Square was the right backdrop for a clean slate at the leather house Roger Saul founded in the 1970s.

Kane said he wanted "this really clean, modern aesthetic for the brand," and I love that he is honest about both sides: himself at the center, the world still very Mulberry. The clever part is a graphic lifted from the Bayswater flap, a rounded, double-notched shape that first appears on a gray leather coat and keeps returning.

More than half the looks carried a bag, and Kane introduced new shapes called the Axe and the Chop, one of which became a backpack. That feels right for how people move through a city, so I begin with shoulder and crossbody bags.

Then there are the structured bags, and here the Bayswater satchel sits at the root of everything. Seeing the new studio take that famous flap and turn it every which way made me appreciate the older shape all over again.

The archive is full of small, personal discoveries. Kane and his sister Tammy found the polo logo there, and he said it reminded them of football fans on the terraces in Scotland when they were growing up. A country check on an oversized raincoat recalled the tartans they knew as children, though check appeared in only a handful of looks.

Loafers, by the way, turned up in more than a third of the looks, and I think that grounded, polished foot is the right partner for a top-handle bag.

Belts and scarves are the quiet part of this show, and I find them the most honest way to try these codes. The collection leaned on a floral wallpaper print on a strapless cotton dress, borrowed from Roger Saul's success in interior design, and on eyelet lace skirts from the house's old adverts. A scarf feels like the natural way to carry a little of that.

Trousers were only a handful of looks, and strapless pieces were few, so the accessories do plenty of work here. A belt cinches the clean line Kane keeps returning to, and I would wear one with that rounded flap shape in mind.

What stays with me is how calm a first show can be. It has been twenty years since Kane founded his own label and three since he closed it, and he came back more mature, grown up enough for a woman and not only a teenager. The studio in Kensington Church Street only took over in early summer, and it still took a long, confident stride.

I would wear the gray leather coat with that rounded, double-notched closure, carry a Bayswater under my arm and throw a scarf over the top. Winter is promised to bring more town and country, and I am already waiting for it.