The Tamesis
“It’s been a while, yes: three years. So compared to others, this is one of the longest!” Daniel Lee smiles over Zoom from the studio at Burberry’s Westminster headquarters, where he has been creatively leading Britain’s top luxury fashion house since October 2022. It took Lee a while to find his stride, but now that he has, Burberry is on the rise.
At Lee’s first show in February 2023, he showed band T-shirts, thermos bottles, duck-bill hats and many other ephemeral gestures on the catwalk that were so outlandish they sometimes felt almost arbitrary. He paid homage to the brand he just joined by adding plenty of plaid throughout the collection, referencing the brand’s classic trench coats in about 20 percent of the looks. It’s entirely understandable, however, that Lee’s formula is adapted from one that saw him achieve huge success during his tenure at Bottega Veneta from 2018 to 2021 (four British Fashion Awards in one year alone).
If Lee’s original Burberry collection wasn’t a hit among the brand’s global network of more than 400 stores, it was consistent with a general malaise across the luxury fashion world. However, instead of keeping calm and moving on, Burberry began a process of constructive adaptation: it brought in experienced American CEO Joshua Schulman as new management, who developed a new strategy called “Burberry Forward.” Although Schulman ordered massive changes under Burberry’s structural engine, coupled with a newfound focus on the brand’s core heritage and identity, he still had faith in Lee. This means that by 2025, no less than 15 creative directors at the top of the fashion industry will be showing their first collections, while Lee and Burberry are shielded from the drama.
Lee’s tenure at Burberry is now longer than his tenure at Bottega. This depth of relationship is delivering business and creative results. Following on from Schulman’s headlines, his latest Fall 2026 collection hewed closer to Burberry’s internationally recognized core codes of British style (Tower Bridge, parties and puddles) and the trench coat: around 60% of the looks in the collection included some form of trench coat. However, despite its apparent simplicity, the trenches themselves suited Li’s exuberant experimental creative impulses. Playful, clever, complex and witty.
As the weather turns for Burberry and Lee, the brand enters its 170th anniversary year, founded by Thomas Burberry in 1856. To mark the anniversary, Lee commissioned a campaign filled with icons. Shot by Tim Walker, the film features 24 British and international celebrities from the worlds of fashion, entertainment and sport. Of course, all of them were wearing Burberry’s famous trench coats. Vogue Runway caught up with Lee shortly before one of his recent shows: below is an edited version of the conversation.
