Did their AW23 show live up to its high expectations?
Now that Fashion Month has ended, we can analyze its big moments. In October 2022, the British fashion house Burberry tapped Daniel Lee, former Creative Director at Bottega Veneta, as their new Chief Creative Officer. In early February, Burberry started rolling out creative content to tease the brand's new direction. The content featured a sleek logo change, intriguing film photography, and the integration of British icons such as Skepta. Clearly, we could look forward to Burberry returning to its distinctively British roots. Lee instantly grabbed fashion lovers' attention everywhere and excited them for the "new Burberry" we would see in their AW23 collection. But did their London Fashion Week show live up to the high expectations?
At the beginning of the show, it is safe to say that viewers were not getting Lee's message. They immediately claimed that he was "copying Vivienne Westwood" and that the looks had no relation to "OG Burberry". People were looking for the traditional Burberry plaid and trench coats, not youthful colors and patterns. But, what people were failing to realize is that Lee's goal was not just to return to Burberry's strong British roots but to redefine and modernize Burberry's strong British roots. There was a need for a change because the younger demographic simply had no interest in Burberry and only thought of it as a heritage brand. One of the collection's t-shirts literally read, "Change is inevitable."
Diving deeper into the collection and how each look paid homage to Britain, we can see the consistent references to the English Rose. T-shirts read, "a rose is not always a rose, " hinting at the need for change and growth. We saw tyrian purple which represents royalty in the UK. We saw red tartan which was used in battle so that soldiers' blood did not show. And finally, we saw lots of cozy and warm outerwear and cold weather accessories as Britain gets super cold in the Autumn and Winter.
We feel as though Lee is doing just what he was brought on to do, and that his debut demonstrated his provocative and forward-thinking ideas for the brand.
Stay tuned for future Burberry coverage.