The trench coat hanging in the Burberry archive weighs less than you'd think

The trench coat hanging in the Burberry archive weighs less than you'd think. It's a 1918 officer's model, cotton gabardine, storm shield intact, and when you lift it off the hanger the sleeves fall into place without prompting. That's the thing about functional design—it doesn't need to announce itself. It just works, then keeps working for a century.

Burberry is easier to understand if you start there. Not with the check, not with the campaigns, but with a coat designed to keep rain out of a trench. Everything else follows.

Thomas Burberry and the Invention of Gabardine

Thomas Burberry opened his first shop in Basingstoke in 1856, aged twenty-one. He was a draper's apprentice with an interest in outdoor clothing, which in Victorian England meant wool that got heavier when wet. By 1879 he'd patented gabardine—a tightly woven cotton twill, waterproofed before weaving, that breathed while shedding rain. The fabric made him. Within a decade he was outfitting polar expeditions.

The trench coat arrived in 1912, refined through the First World War. Officers wanted something lighter than a greatcoat, something that moved. Burberry gave them gabardine with a back vent, epaulettes for rank insignia, D-rings for equipment, and a throat latch that actually kept wind out. Aquascutum will tell you they invented it first. Burberry will tell you theirs worked better. Both sold thousands to the War Office. The silhouette stuck.

After the war, the coat came home. Burberry marketed it to motorists, then to anyone who walked in weather. By the 1950s it was standard issue for British film directors and foreign correspondents. The check lining—a camel, red, black, and white plaid registered in 1924—started as an internal detail. It became the logo by accident, visible only when you moved or turned up the collar. Then someone put it on an umbrella.

The Check and What Happened Next

The Burberry check is now more recognisable than the trench. That's the problem and the opportunity. In the 1990s the house licensed the pattern aggressively—scarves, bags, dog leads, pram liners. It sold. It also became shorthand for a particular kind of British excess, worn by footballers' wives and teenage shoplifters in equal measure. By 2004 the check appeared on so many counterfeit goods that some British pubs banned it outright.

Christopher Bailey arrived as creative director in 2001 and spent the next seventeen years pulling Burberry back from the brink. He retired the check from all but a fraction of the collection. He brought back the gabardine, put the trench on the runway in thirty-seven variations, and hired Cara Delevingne before anyone else did. The work was patient and occasionally brilliant. He left in 2018 with the house stable, profitable, and significantly less flashy than he'd found it.

Riccardo Tisci followed. He replaced the Prorsum knight logo with a monogram designed by Peter Saville, introduced a new check in orange and beige, and showed sharp tailoring that borrowed more from his Givenchy years than from the archive. The clothes were good. The market was unconvinced. Tisci left in 2022.

Daniel Lee took over in October 2022. He came from Bottega Veneta, where he'd turned leather goods into a quiet juggernaut. At Burberry he's done something similar but louder—big outerwear, big scarves, big bags in check and leather. The Prorsum knight is back. So is the original check, deployed with less anxiety than before. Lee's first collections sold through faster than Tisci's ever did. Whether that's creative direction or pent-up demand is still unclear, but the stores are moving stock.

What to Buy and What It Costs

Start with the trench. The Heritage Kensington in cotton gabardine runs £1,590 for the mid-length version, £1,790 for the long. It's the same cut the house has sold since 1950, same storm shield, same back vent, same throat latch you'll never use. Sizes run true. If you're between sizes, go down—the coat's meant to sit close through the shoulder and chest. It'll loosen after a month of wear.

The gabardine itself is worth understanding. It's a 10oz cotton twill, woven tight enough to block wind and light rain without a membrane. Burberry still treats it before weaving, which means it breathes better than anything coated or laminated. It will not keep you dry in a downpour. It will keep you dry walking from the Tube to the office, which is what most people actually need. The fabric softens with age. Don't dry-clean it more than once a year.

If £1,590 is too much, the Camden trench uses a lighter gabardine and skips the storm shield. It's £990 and still better than most coats at that price. If you want the trench but not the commitment, try the car coat—same fabric, shorter body, easier to wear over knitwear. It's £1,390 and works better in practice than it sounds on paper.

Beyond the trench, the check cashmere scarf is the house's second-best piece. It's £530 for the oversized version, 168cm by 30cm, heavy enough to work as a blanket on a flight. The cashmere is Mongolian, milled in Scotland, soft without being fragile. You can wear it every day from November to March. People do.

Bags are where Lee's made the most noise. The Knight bag—a soft hobo in check jacquard or leather—is everywhere at the moment, priced from £1,490 for the small to £2,290 for the large. It's well-made, conspicuous, and divisive. If you want something quieter, the Rocking Horse bag in grained leather is £1,850 and doesn't scream. Neither does the Cube bag, a boxy tote in canvas or leather from £890. Both will outlast the Knight's moment.

Shirting is underrated. Burberry's Oxford cloth is woven in Italy, cut generously through the shoulder, and finished with mother-of-pearl buttons that don't crack. A check poplin runs £390. A plain Oxford is £350. Both are better than the price suggests, though you're still paying a brand premium. If you're going to buy one, buy the Oxford. It'll look right in fifteen years.

Knitwear sits in an odd spot. The archive check cashmere jumpers are £890 and immediately recognisable, which is either the point or the problem depending on how you feel about being immediately recognisable. The plain merino and cashmere pieces—crewnecks from £490, rollnecks from £590—are safe and unremarkable. You can find the same quality for £200 less at a Scottish mill shop, but you won't find the Burberry cut, which is roomier through the body than most Italian houses offer.

Where the House Stands

Burberry is not in crisis. It's also not where it was in 2015, when Bailey's trench-forward vision felt both nostalgic and modern. Lee's task is to make the house feel urgent again without abandoning the archive. So far he's leaning into scale—big volumes, big patterns, big presence. It's working commercially. Whether it's working creatively is a question that won't settle for another few seasons.

The trench remains the safest entry point. It's the one piece the house has never got wrong, the one thing that doesn't shift with creative direction or market trends. Buy it in your mid-twenties and it'll still fit in your forties, assuming you don't. The gabardine will soften. The buttons will dull. The storm shield will stay where it is, doing nothing, until the one day in March when the wind turns and you finally understand what it's for.