Designer Daniel Lee unveiled a joyful Burberry spring 2027 collection featuring original prints by Celia Birtwell, the legendary British textile designer whose playful, hand-painted patterns for her late husband Ossie Clark’s rock-chic designs helped define the spirit of Swinging London. The inimitably cool couple, she in a flowing caftan and he in bell-bottoms, were immortalized alongside their cat by David Hockney in his celebrated 1970-1 double, or rather triple, portrait, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. Now 85, Birtwell brought that same free-spirited irreverence to Burberry’s iconic House Check, taking liberties with one of British fashion’s most recognizable motifs.
Inside a purpose-built white show space on the Parade Ground at Chelsea College of Arts, where Birtwell once taught, she sat practically incognito in black tailoring and a white pussy-bow blouse. The only decor was wooden box seating painted with intersecting black stripes, paring Burberry’s signature four-color pattern down to black and beige. On the runway, the pattern was similarly distilled into two- and three-color windowpane and tattersall checks, rendered in soft pastels and muted tones on shiny car coats and cotton poplin shirting. Horizontal or vertical stripes of cobalt and azure stripped it back even further, while adding a jolt of color.
Birtwell also contributed her signature florals and a whimsical print of bright, emoji-like faces, resurrected from a design she had created decades ago but never put into production. Lee ramped up the exuberance through bravura pattern mixing and embellishment, with a tartan safari shirt and pencil skirt featuring dense floral embroidery layered over a vibrant long-sleeve striped shirt in yellow and apple green. Silk faille and taffeta trench dresses were embroidered with micro-florals, while the faces popped up as hand-cut leather discs and pompoms on coats. Bags and strappy, buckled sandals also received a fanciful treatment with sequined stripes and jacquard-woven floral details.
