Within the manicured grounds of Kensington Gardens in Hyde Park lies Perks Field, a private garden built in the 17th century by George London and Henry Wise. It’s a site that Burberry once favoured for its runway shows, erecting glass-roofed tents beneath which they have housed live orchestras, festooned walls with the literary workings of Bruce Chatwin, and cloaked with heavy Durham quilts and fringed suede.
The house’s current creative director, Daniel Lee, has so far opted to show in sites of cultural significance across London – filling the National Theatre with the work of YBA legend Gary Hume, and last season, transforming the Tate Britain with tapestry-draped interiors that mimicked the warmth of British country homes. For his S/S 2026 display, however, Lee has chosen to return the brand to Kensington Gardens for the first time in nearly a decade (it last showed a womenswear collection there in 2016, within a glass house conceived by then-creative director Christopher Bailey.)
Burberry returns to once-favourite show location, Perks Field, with a dreamy sky-printed tent
Aptly, given its location, this season the Burberry show tent is directly inspired by the house’s outdoor heritage. Employing the weather-proof gabardine fabric Thomas Burberry pioneered in the late 19th century, its roof is printed to look like the sky on a summer’s day – not unlike the glorious weather that, ironically, settled over the city at the close of a busy London Fashion Week. Gabardine is a material that has long offered warmth and shelter from the unpredictable British skies, ‘as it has for generations of adventurers and explorers’, said the brand.
The collection itself will look to the intertwined relationship between fashion and music in Britain, its tent setting evoking the feeling of summer festivals. Daniel Lee was thinking of the heady spirit of these events, observing how each summer the country seems to come alive with their energy. Moving between the wardrobes of genres from Britpop to Grime, looks embrace the eclectic attitude of festival dressing: rain-proof outerwear paired with a ‘visual remix’ of textures, from skirts made entirely of tiger-eye beads to chainmail mini-dresses, worn with mud-ready leather boots. The resulting wardrobe is a particularly textured and energetic outing from Lee, which the designer hopes to reflect the varied and evolving nature of the UK’s music scene itself.
‘Music is about self-expression, creativity, and belonging,’ says the designer. ‘From festivals and stadiums to open-air concerts, every summer the UK comes to life with style and sound.’ Continuing to explore British identity while bringing Burberry’s decades-long codes into the present, the display marks a joyful chapter in Lee’s vision for the house as it stands as the last remaining juggernaut brand on the London Fashion Week calendar. The city, the brand says, will always remain ‘our creative backdrop and our spiritual home’.
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