Burberry Spring/Summer 2027
At the centre of the collection was Daniel Lee’s collaboration with British textile designer and artist Celia Birtwell. Lee met Birtwell this spring, and their meeting developed into one of the defining elements of the collection. At 85, Birtwell remains one of the most recognisable figures in British textile design, particularly known for the expressive floral language associated with the 1960s and 1970s. For Burberry, she reworked the house’s familiar check and introduced new drawings and floral motifs, including a colourful print featuring round faces from a drawing she had created years ago but never previously released.
Her contribution brought something personal and spontaneous into the Burberry wardrobe. The flowers did not feel like a simple reference to the past. They appeared alongside Burberry’s established codes as if newly discovered.
The setting gave those references another dimension. At Chelsea College of Arts, Burberry created an exceptional sense of open, almost infinite space, where light, sound and movement seemed to extend far beyond the runway itself. The art-school surroundings gave the collection a different perspective on British design — one where Birtwell’s floral language, the Burberry check and softened silhouettes could feel lighter, more spontaneous and entirely of the present.
The collection carried a bright and varied form of minimalism — restrained in shape, but far from monotonous in its details, textures and silhouettes. There was simplicity without emptiness: clean lines alongside expressive prints, relaxed proportions against carefully constructed details, familiar codes suddenly looking different in motion.
The clothes also created a particular feeling of movement. Watching the models walk, it seems like they have somewhere important to be, while never needing to hurry. The silhouettes moved through time at their own pace — purposeful, but completely present in the moment. This feeling prompts the viewer to wonder what the models themselves might be carrying while walking in these looks — whether they, too, experience that strange combination of having somewhere to go while feeling no urgency to arrive.
The staging kept the clothes at the centre, but the vastness of the space continually changed how the silhouettes appeared. Against the light, garments seemed to shift in scale and weight. At moments, there was something almost weightless about them — as though the clothes and the people wearing them were moving through a space with no obvious beginning or end.
The sense of space and light was reinforced by the 4D-like quality of the sound. From inside the room, low frequencies, echo and reverberation could almost be felt physically. The sound seemed to surround the audience from every direction, deepening the feeling of distance and infinity — almost as if you were inside an spacecraft, or somewhere beyond the boundaries of Earth.
In some way, this atmosphere brings to mind Interstellar — a place where ordinary ideas of time and distance seem to disappear. The arrangement created for the collection gradually carried the audience through different stages of tension and release, moving from the first appearance towards the final note.
In the middle of the show came what I would call a kind of “cosmic spring”. The movement of the models felt like a transition from the first lilies of spring into a light summer breeze. For a few moments, something familiar, living and almost earthly appeared inside that otherwise otherworldly space.
By the final note, the tension had almost completely dissolved, leaving a physical sense of relief — like finally being able to breathe out after holding your breath for too long.
And then came Central Cee. Rather than appearing only as a guest, the London rapper walked the runway himself, bringing a distinctly contemporary London presence into the collection. His oversized, relaxed look, rooted in the language of modern streetwear, cut through the softer floral references and art-school atmosphere around him. It was an unexpected shift — and somehow, it made sense.
Celia Birtwell’s flowers, the Burberry check, the vastness of Chelsea College of Arts, the almost otherworldly sound, and then Central Cee: different generations, different sides of British culture, occupying the same runway. For a moment, Burberry’s past and London’s present seemed to meet in the same frame. And perhaps that was the point. Not looking backwards, but letting everything that came before move somewhere new.
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