Burberry reworks signature check with Birtwell florals for 2027 show

Burberry chief creative officer Daniel Lee closed London Fashion Week on 21 September with the Spring/Summer 2027 collection at Chelsea College of Arts, part of UAL. He collaborated with textile designer Celia Birtwell, 85, who once taught at the venue and who reworked the House Check so it resolves into gingham, reduced still further into a stripe, adding florals, faces and other motifs. Lee called it "a return to the basis of things" and said: "You can really feel the human hand in it. In the check, in the lines." He also said: "Nothing is overly pressed or pristine. There's an intentional imperfection: the idea of owning a piece, living in it." Washed silk and cotton, denim, chiffon, embroidery and trenches with trompe l'œil belts and epaulettes featured, with a Derby in hand-finished florals, a woven-leather Sloane bag, strapped clogs and climbing-style moccasins. Models walked between unregimented wooden seating to four decades of David Bowie, whom Lee linked to humanity in the experiment, as Central Cee debuted with hood up and jeans low, secured with a shoelace. Savoir Flair cited the 170th anniversary and described Birtwell's check almost like a garden trellis for flowers. The Guardian stressed Birtwell humanising Burberry; the Daily Mail led on leather. CONTESTED: none found.