Wait, Is Burberry Back (Again)?

One fine morning, two young fish come across an older fish swimming the other way. “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” he asks. The fishlets swim on until it finally dawns upon them, “What the hell is water?” 

“The point of the fish story,” explains David Foster Wallace in his 2005 speech This is Water, “is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.”

Now, while quoting Mr. Wallace risks situating yours truly squarely into the terrifying territory of the performative male, it’s also true that sometimes in fashion, as with life, the best solution is the most obvious one.

And for Burberry, a brand that luxuriates in the lavishness of its titillating trenches and checkered scarves – and one that’s been floundering through the better part of the last decade – comeback was really less about a grand reinvention, and more of just a return to form.

So yes, dear reader, Burberry, fashion’s shining beacon of Britishness, one that, writes Vanessa Friedman, “could be seeded across borders even as the empire itself shrank,” is finally on a major comeback arc… yet again.

The only question is, will it last this time around?

On Tom Wambsgans and TikTok Catnip

Now, with its quintessential Britishness (and unstated uptightness), Burberry has always belonged in the domain of the rich and famous. 

Be it those ’20s countryside campaigns featuring English nobility in their outdoorsy pursuits as shot by photographer (and 5th Earl of Lichfield), Thomas Patrick John Anson; or actual photos of The Queen cavorting across Windsor in the ’80s in her Burbs and Hermès headscarves.

In 2023, however, Burberry found itself (yet again) on the wrong side of the rich and famous discourse. Dear reader, I refer to Succession, and its infamous, ludicrously capacious bag-gate that had us all shook.

To the dismay of the Burb-adversaries, though, Tom Wambsgans’ scathing diatribe against the brand actually set in motion a series of events that ultimately led to the comeback of its Nova check today. 

According to 3DLook, for instance, Google searches for ‘Burberry tote bag’ rose over 310% in the aftermath of the episode, while those for ‘Burberry handbag’ and ‘Burberry tote’ were up 180% and 25% respectively. “Tom’s sharp tongue might have just earned Burberry some extra sales,” quipped CCO Whitney Cathcart, “after all, the majority of us do use the subway.”

And later that year, Bottega alum Daniel Lee had his models strutting across the AW23 show in fake-fur trapper hats, furry muffs, fleecy footwear, and fluffy hot water bottles, in a much-anticipated runway debut. 

“There was lots of TikTok catnip,” proceeded to write Mrs. Friedman, “What there wasn’t was a lot of emotion or big new ideas.”

 But what if big new ideas weren’t what Burberry needed?

The Summer Burberry Turned Pretty

It’s precisely this line of thought that Lee (now under the watchful eye of new CEO Joshua Schulman) decided to double down on. And if AW23 contained mere smatterings of TikTok catnip, AW25 proved to be a TikTok goldmine. 

For one, the collection unfolded at the very breeding ground of Britishisms, the Tate Gallery Britain, on a catwalk adorned with plaid wool tapestries that, if the brand decided to sell, surmises Lorenzo Salamone, “it would soon recover the financial losses caused by the former CEO.”

And then, there was the cast list. Jason Isaacs (of The White Lotus fame), as did Richard E Grant and Lesley Manville, walked the show. Nicholas Hoult, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Jodie Turner-Smith, Geri Halliwell, and Kim Cattrall all graced the front row, as did, naturally, the all-seeing Anna.

The surprise guest, however, turned out to be a Burberry knight in full armor, seemingly brought to life from the brand’s famously crowdsourced 1901 Equestrian Knight Design (EKD) logo. Now, he is taking selfies on the FROW with Mrs. Wintour while clutching a checkered scarf of his own.

As Vogue chimes, “When was the last time you saw a Burberry show go viral? Exactly.”

Add to that the comeback of the Burberry bikini – yes, the very design Beyoncé donned in the 03 Bonnie & Clyde MV – as part of its high summer 2025 campaign, now laced onto the likes of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, tennis player Jack Draper, along with a slew of faces old and fresh. Unsurprisingly, @databutmakeitfashion reported an 83% increase in stock prices immediately after the campaign dropped!

Over at the accessories universe, new bags like the B-Clip sport the classic check and its reimagined renditions, while the vintage Burberry Bridle emerged as one of the most-liked pieces on British resale site Vinted.

Now, does correlation equal causation? No. But is it a great time to be a Burb-girl right now? Absolutely!

On Class and the Classics

So, what exactly does it mean to be a Burb-girl (or, well, boy?)

If anything, there’s a delicious degree of perversion. 

The trench is an instant sartorial upper, a roomy piece to throw over “whatever slapdash slop I wear, and promptly transform into some clay-bird-shooting dame happily marooned in the Cotswolds,” writes Ms. Satenstein. Wear it undone in that “deliciously louche, just-railed 9½ Weeks style,” or cinch it at the waist for some Bad Girl Madonna vogue.

On the other hand, the checkered scarf is a real accessory, a prim, polite underline to your monotone mishmash (not to mention, one that has historically signified class). “The piece,” rhapsodizes Satenstein, “excuses bad manners, runny eyeliner, and any of last night’s stench.”

Burberry’s associations with class, and now Lee’s subversion of it, have led to its success. We don’t need—nor expect—streetwear drops or logo-laden sneakers from Burberry. What we do need, however, is transgressiveness, like that viral fake campaign by Casual Connoisseur titled “The Burberry Look,” which featured a movie still of a baseball bat-wielding suburban hooligan instantly chic-ified by a classic trench.

“If only real Burberry campaigns were this dynamic…” laments @veryadvanced on Instagram.