Burberry Summer 2027

Running across it all is Celia Birtwell, the British textile artist whose prints defined the look of the 1960s and 1970s. Where Burberry’s language is typically graphic, Birtwell’s drawings bring a sense of joy. Through her eyes, the House Check resolves into gingham, reduced still further into a stripe. Faces and florals disrupt traditional codes. It’s a creative collaboration rooted in experimentation. Constant exchange – something slightly off, as opposed to just pretty.

‘You can really feel the human hand in it,’ Lee says. ‘In the check, in the lines.’

Washed silk and cotton give the womenswear a feel of something worn-in and loved. Shorter menswear cuts, relaxed and youthful, are thrown on with ease. The equestrian-inspired Derby is fashioned with hand-finished florals, while the neat Sloane bag is made tactile with woven leather. There’s a sophisticated ease that mimics the way you might build an everyday wardrobe around a T-shirt: its simplicity; its flatter, squarer shape repeated throughout.

‘Nothing is overly pressed or pristine,’ Lee says. ‘There’s an intentional imperfection: the idea of owning a piece, living in it.’

This is classic Burberry utility made easy. Clean lines allow the richness of the technique to come to the fore. Airy fabrics provide the foundation for intricate embroidery and trompe l’oeil trench details such as belts and epaulettes. There’s volume throughout – but the lightweight fabrication allows it to take up space without ever feeling heavy.

The collection itself is more character-driven than ever, a neutral palette punctured by the colour of Birtwell’s prints. The joyful approach extends to casting, where ‘rather than imposing a uniform look, we wanted each person’s individuality to be pushed, accentuated, heightened,’ Lee says.

Staged at Chelsea College of Arts, part of the University of the Arts London (UAL), the set design is deliberately exposing. Against this restraint, these clothes read as human rather than perfect – soulful and tactile. Wooden seating, unregimented, brings warmth into the white space, as does the soundtrack, drawn from four decades of music by David Bowie – a British artist whose music always managed to find the ‘humanity in the experiment,’ as Lee puts it. ‘A feeling of instinct amid the control.’