Two British labels: one obsessed with the check and the trench, the other founded in 2009 by Lev Tanju out of South London skate culture, football shirts, raves, and a deadpan refusal to take fashion too seriously.
On paper, it feels as though the Palace X Burberry collaboration should have happened years ago, but with Daniel Lee's Britishness project at Burberry in full swing, the latest drop from the two British brands (dropping this week) might have landed just in time.
The 10-piece capsule, launching in-store at Palace's new London flagship, is headlined by hooded jackets, tees, baseball caps, scarves, skateboards wrapped in the check, and the piece everything hangs on: a reworked Burberry Camden car coat in honey beige, screen-printed with British countryside illustrations and the Equestrian Knight vaulting out of Palace's Tri-Ferg. For fans of either brand, it’s peak British fashion royalty that’s perfectly suited to the contemporary wardrobe.
The only issue for Australians is that this highly limited drop has no online release and won’t be stocked across other stores. That means watching from afar, waiting for resale (with a serious markup after the fact), or hopping on a short flight to Blighty. Sorry fellas.
So why should this matter? Well, Burberry has done this before and got it wrong. The 2022 Supreme collaboration under Riccardo Tisci was slightly off the mark and didn’t land with the British brand’s loyal fanbase.
So since becoming chief creative officer in 2022, Daniel Lee has been on a mission to return Burberry to its lofty position as the definitive British luxury house, not merely an old brand with an iconic check pattern.
The Gary Hume, Quentin Blake, and most recently Celia Birtwell collaborations were all part of it, drawing on British creatives to recapture some of the magic that made Burberry such a style mainstay in the past. And whilst the fridge-magnet-cum-bumper-sticker of “British Heritage” can surely sell the first batch of clothing and accessories, it’s not enough to convert a new generation of fashionistas to the brand.
It makes sense for Palace, then, to be the next cab off the rank, a brand footballers, artists, and fashion editors all wear and wear authentically. The most recent England football drop (and the head-spinning rate at which the collection sold out) is surely testament to that.
So Burberry will hope to clamber into that cultural space it’s struggled to reach organically, particularly among younger consumers. British style need not be stuck in the archive.