“I felt there was nothing new coming out at the time that represented me, and what I feel. So I just started writing from my personal experience.” The third installment of Daniel Lee’s Burberry played out to an Amy Winehouse medley—almost all the bangers—cut with recorded dialogue such as the above from the late, great genius. Tonight, Lee too looked to write a fresh lyric, adjusting the angle of his design lens in order to resonate with a myriad typology of people through the prism of this grand old British house.
Backstage he said, “The vibe this season really started with thinking about the characters that wear Burberry. Everyone from royalty to the street—Burberry I think can touch everyone, and there are always new people discovering it, and new generations.”
We were in another big Burberry tent, this one styled to resemble a medieval jousting pavilion in honor of the brand’s Equestrian Knight Design logotype. Lee’s first look was modeled by Agyness Deyn, a gesture that transported you back nearly two decades in one trench-coated swoop. Lily Donaldson, Karen Elson, Lily Cole, Naomi Campbell, and Edie Campbell later layered more runway nostalgia within Lee’s delicately formulated equation.
Deyn’s look, a minimized moleskin trench with high collar and storm flap worn above ’90s-bootcut pants with check turn-up, signaled the opening of a suite of olive looks that reflected the military provenance of Burberry’s most enduring invention. Especially innovative here was a trench that appeared to have been shaped from the boiled wool of an army blanket or jacket liner, and worn above an abundantly yarn fringed sweater, both also in olive. The deepest of V-sweaters for women and men were wisped with what looked like feathered epaulets of more tufted yarn. Lee created variations of the polished, glossy, trench-plus-boot Burberry womenswear archetype by mixing in much more robust and outdoorsy pieces of outerwear like the check sherpa lined barn jacket worn by Donaldson over a caramel knit dress.
Some of these pieces—that yomping barn jacket, the moleskin trench, some Chelsea topcoats, a pitch perfect-borderline sleazy Hawley Arms long shearling in brown or black—were repeated with minor variation for both genders. Others, like the heavy donkey jacket worn over leather hoodie and ghillie loafers by Gene Gallagher, or the white Afghan style trench near the close, were used as points of distinction between them. Many looks were accessorized with check folding umbrellas to signify a force of nature that unifies everyone in Britain.
Lee’s emphasis on creating character through his looks resulted in a kaleidoscopic cast of them, from bourgeois Bruton dame in silk paisley shirting, moleskin skirt, and riding boot, to louche London dandy in a wool jacquard paisley pant and double breasted wool overcoat with a magnificent off-green collar. The danger with trying to represent something special for everyone is that you end up meaning nothing much to anyone; however tonight, the tangible creative calories pumped by Lee into this ambitious rewriting of Burberry’s many meanings delivered a collection that was convincingly both diverse and consistent.
