Burberry brings British nostalgia to London Fashion Week with tea-time tartan and trench coats

Hidden within the manicured lawns of Kensington Gardens in London’s Hyde Park is Perks Field, a private green space originally planned in the 17th century by George London and Henry Wise.

But for London Fashion Week it became Daniel Lee’s stage. The creative director transformed it into a country dreamscape for Burberry’s spring/summer 2026 show.

Under a printed blue-grey sky and walking across a floor the colour of damp soil, Lee sent out a collection that took the brand’s heritage pieces – the trench, the check, the structured suits – and made them feel like rave outfits for a festival in the Cotswolds.

The collection was a remix of familiar codes into something more tactile, eccentric and festival-ready: a revival of old British countryside dressing for a new audience.

Since taking over at Burberry in 2022, Lee has made no secret of wanting to restore a distinctly British spirit to the house, reviving archival logos, emphasising traditional fabrics and silhouettes and foregrounding the trench and tartan as pillars of its identity.

This was certainly apparent for his latest collection. The mood was set from the opening look: a double-breasted tartan trench in deep mustard leather worn with chunky biker boots, at once aristocratic and rugged.

Next came soft three-piece suits in olive pinstripe with python boots, faded denim jackets layered over graphic T-shirts and a vivid green leather trench worn with wraparound sunglasses.

Everything felt a little looser and a little more lived-in than previous Burberry collections – as if the ensembles were borrowed from a well-stocked upper-class wardrobe.

Colours were deliberately dusty or offbeat, as a palette of khaki, mustard, chocolate and washed denim spilt out onto the runway, punctuated by jolts of lime, turquoise and tomato red – bright hues that have been trending on runways all week.

Lee doubled down on Burberry’s most recognisable motif, turning the check from a discreet lining into a full-look proposition.

Swing coats, trench dresses and minis came in acid-green and crimson tartans or sky-blue plaids, styled with biker boots or sandals to pull back any prim-and-proper associations.

Even the scarves were dramatic: long fringed strips of moss or turquoise trailing to the knees, echoing saddle blankets and festival flags.

Crochet dresses – one in ivory, one in bright green – added a hand-crafted softness and looked deliberately mismatched with the smart outerwear slung nonchalantly over an arm.

Bags were slouchy leather with fringe; boots were desert or python; sunglasses were oversized shields, hinting at racing days and club nights alike.

Lee managed to turn any stuffy associations with heritage and tradition into a cooler, more youthful energy.

The iconic Burberry trench appeared in multiple guises – denim-washed, cropped in chocolate leather, reimagined in sky-blue fringe – and was often carried rather than worn, suggesting movement and layering rather than a single uniform.

Tailoring was cut long and soft, with skinny ties dangling and cuffs spilling past wrists, as if Lee was loosening the formalities of Savile Row. There was nostalgia in the palette and proportions – evoking a 1980s scene of a city banker going rural or a corporate worker fleeing to a festival.

It’s a tricky balancing act. Burberry’s strength lies in its Britishness, but in recent years the house has wrestled with how to make that heritage resonate with younger, global customers without losing its aura of luxury.

This show suggested Lee’s answer is to lean into a retro smart-countryside aesthetic – the aristocratic trench and tartan reframed with craft, colour and practicality – so that the same pieces can move between city and country, work and weekend.

It looked designed not just for unpredictable weather but for unpredictable taste, an adaptable wardrobe of icons rather than a set of uniforms.

Staged beneath an artificial English sky in a garden once designed for royalty, the spring/summer 2026 collection felt like the clearest statement yet of Lee’s vision. It didn’t simply revisit the past but treated it as a living archive to be worn, mixed and dirtied.

As eclectic as the collection was, so was the audience. Celebrities and royals alike filled the front row, including Princess Maria Olympia of Greece and Denmark, Twiggy, Skepta, Maya Jama and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

For a label built on weatherproof fabric, the show was a fitting proposition: clothes ready to withstand both the rain and the scrutiny of fashion’s fickle seasons.

Whether this approach will cement Burberry’s place at the top of the luxury hierarchy remains to be seen, but on this evidence Lee has given British heritage a louche new lease of life.