‘Think of them as weekend escapees,’ says Daniel Lee, of the pictures pinned to a mood board. ‘It’s that great Friday night exodus from London. Long rainy walks in the great outdoors to disconnect and day trips to grand stately homes.’
Part fabulous tale, part fact: for centuries, weary Londoners have escaped the churn of the capital city to breathe the clean countryside air.
And legions of Londoners spill out at faraway train stations, consumed by what Lee calls ‘that slightly eccentric, somewhat bohemian need to travel – weekend luggage included.’
It’s this very same weekend luggage that Lee unpacked and unpicked as inspiration for the Burberry Winter 2025 runway show at London’s Tate Britain today.
Rendering outdoor coats and scarves, evening wear, day wear and suits in a mix of twisted British fabrics by British makers, the collection – couched in Burberry’s values of design, innovation and skill – fuses the faded interiors and fabrics found in the great country houses of England with the de facto practical.
Country house interiors come folded into contemporary dress codes; the rugged outdoors now reframed with the ‘faded and noble’. And weather-shielding fabrics are fused with elaborate wall hangings.
Lee cites classic British tropes of film and television, and their deeply layered social observations, as ‘potent touchstones’ of the new collection. All of which are shone through the Burberry prism.
And it’s to those grand houses, with their exquisite yet slightly worn interiors, where the Winter 2025 Burberry collection turns next.
Struck by the craftsmanship and lavish fabrics of the finest stately homes, Lee began pouring over swatches of hand-painted wallpapers found in the grandest drawing rooms, alongside furnishing fabrics, handmade carpets and ‘sumptuous, somewhat faded’ tapestries.
Huge drapes frame the runway, reinterpreting the rich heritage of landscape paintings by British masters and tapestries.
The seating comes draped in frescos, seen in many old country houses, which lend the illusion of dust sheets in a packed-up manor.
Throughout the Burberry collection, there’s a deliberate tension and interplay between indoor furnishing fabrics – now seen outdoors – and a continuing expansion of the Burberry design language. One where interiors inform outfits, which are then worn in new ways. Velvet brocade jackets replicate flocked wallpaper, pheasant prints are intricately cut to create feathered trims, and delicate lacework is reimagined with beads.
And then there are coats. Iconic Burberry silhouettes are recast: this time, a classic trench comes in embossed leather. And new proposals of heirloom pieces come in patchwork shearling and jacquard weaves inspired by tapestry. The cape returns in knit and shearling, complete with trench elements found after a detailed survey of the exhaustive Burberry archive.
Country pursuits inform equestrian jodhpur trousers and Savile Row-inspired tailoring in birdseye wool, while artisanal craft brings a sense of revelry and romanticism to trench coats and dresses in shredded chine damask.
Colours like tapestry brown and deer taupe feature, alongside shades of punky red and yellow, alder and maze greens. Plus, plaids and checks inspired by Lee’s long walks in the Yorkshire Dales.
The new B Bracelet bag fuses saddle shapes with a curved top handle and hardware is inspired by bridle reins and finished with a signature horse clip. Pumps, slippers and equestrian boots come reworked in damask weaves and embossed leathers, modelled on richly furnished interiors.
The B Clip saddle bag returns, woven with tapestry-style motifs, while on totes, holdalls and clutches, leathers are weathered for a sense of familiarity in intarsia and Burberry Check.
Treasured jewellery is full of old-world elegance, with stars and fireworks in light-catching hand-set stones and ribbons of colourful enamel.
The show takes place at Tate Britain in London, a fitting British backdrop for a celebration of British creativity. It marks a one-year partnership with Tate, supporting vital conservation work at Tate Britain’s world-leading Painting Conservation Studio.
The casting brings together actors from the worlds of iconic British film and television, music and modelling including Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (‘Mr. Malcolm’s List’), Jason Isaacs (‘Verona’s Romeo & Juliet’), Richard E. Grant (‘Gosford Park’), Guy Remmers (‘The Buccaneers’), Elizabeth McGovern (‘Downton Abbey’), Jessica Madsen (‘Bridgerton’) and Lesley Manville (‘The Crown’).
For the runway music, Lee commissioned longtime Burberry collaborator, producer and DJ Benji B to source the archive of singer Sinéad O’Connor (1966–2023).
