“I don't really know what to expect,” a nearby guest said as we tucked onto marshmallowy brown fleeced pews for the Burberry Fall 2024 show. As the third outing for creative director Daniel Lee, a pattern was emerging. We were in another big top tent in another big London park (this time, it was Victoria, a sacred East London ground of Salomon trainers and second Hinge dates). It was still the keynote address of London Fashion Week. Flags bearing the recently revived ‘Burberry Equestrian Knight’ motif rippled high over another stretch of prime London real estate. And yet despite the familiarity, it was difficult to predict where Lee would go. Just yesterday, a Business of Fashion article insisted that Burberry had something to prove. Luxury labels big and small have felt the crunch of the financial climate. According to almost every sidebar of doom across the land, the UK is officially in recession. So, what does Burberry do now?
As soon as the august warble of Amy Winehouse seeped from the speakers, it became clear; Burberry would look to our better days, and create something brand new in the process. “You Know I'm No Good" soundtracked the first look to spring from the darkness of the tent. It was a high-collared, slate-grey trench coat. Textbook Burberry. But it was worn by none other than the empress dowager of indie sleaze, Agyness Deyn, the Rochdale-born model who appeared on almost every big campaign ad when The Libertines sold out venues. Her first era, now faded and far enough away that it can be considered shiny once more, has seen a little pick-up over at Celine and Marc Jacobs. But at Burberry, it felt more organic. This is the highest luxury tower in the nation that birthed the entire movement (which would explain why Lily Cole, another model of the time, appeared in the line-up). Daniel Lee has a birth-given right to this sort of stuff. And so more rejigged artefacts of the age sprang forth; close-fitting knits, donkey jackets, trenches that leaned heavy on the military touches.
Yet Lee's machine didn't stick to one age. Not really. For every elevated take on the kit of rail-thin frontmen past, there was another era for Burberry to riff on. The zoot suits and V-necks were echoes of a time in the noughties when Premier League players were allowed to have fun (real, 5am, falling out of a cab in the Daily Mail fun). The fringed sleeves and hems were set to graze the club floors of the party dresses that came before. The boots were decidedly futuristic, and stompy, and menacing. And the Burberry scarf – the very fabric upon which the house is built – was styled for the now; several models wore theirs Babushka style like the earnest, smiley GRWM boys of TikTok.
“Listen, this isn't a reunion,” sang the next part of the Burberry soundtrack. It was Winehouse's early hit “My Bed”, a period before the singer's private life went public. And yet this show felt just like a reunion. Olivia Colman sat near Skepta who was across from Phil Dunster who filed in past Cara Delevingne who was photographed right before Barry Keoghan who went for a big coat like Jonathan Bailey and Callum Turner. And, of course, there was Naomi Campbell. It was a high-wattage event that few brands could match. Because, in the UK, there's no other homegrown label that stands taller, nor one that people want to succeed more. You could feel people actively root for this Burberry. Maybe because, historically, Burberry has succeeded when the UK has succeeded.
“I think with this collection, we started thinking more and more about the people who wear Burberry, and the different types of characters that have Burberry in their life,” Lee said to the travelling press corps backstage. “My experience of Burberry was much more urban; people at the football grounds, or people in the pub. And I think that's the unique appeal of this brand, it caters to everyone… [we] wanted to express these different kinds of people that make up the brand." Listen, where else would you have Joanna Lumley sat across from Bukayo Saka? Burberry does what other brands can't in bringing every cross-section of Britain together.
And that's maybe the greatest thing about Lee's Burberry. The idea of Britishness, in all its weird hodgepodge-ism, is a nebulous concept that's hard to articulate. Tougher still is decanting that idea into something as subjective as clothes. But at the Burberry Fall 2024 show, we saw Britain in all its wonderful chaos. As Winehouse closed out the show, the nihilistic funeral dirge of “Back to Black” played on loop. It could've felt like a jump into the abyss. But Burberry seems to luxuriate in the cultural blender that is the British Isles. And why not? Fashion's punditry was unsure of what to expect at the show's open – and the great unknown is where British fashion thrives.
