September 28, 2022 |
Following Riccardo Tisci departure from Burberry after four years at the helm of the British brand, we look back at 10 moments which defined his tenure.
1. Burberry’s new look
Tisci’s arrival at the house in 2018 was met with a complete rebrand led by acclaimed art director and graphic designer, Peter Saville. Famous for his record sleeve designs for New Order and Joy Division, as well as rebranding a slew of contemporary fashion houses, Saville transformed Burberry’s logo into a new black, sans serif design (inspired by the brand’s history in rubber and leatherwear).
Saville also engineered a Thomas Burberry monogram, which interlocked Burberry’s founder’s initials in a bubble font drenched in hazard orange and the brand’s signature shade of beige. The modern design would go onto wrap Burberry show venues, perforate Tisci’s earliest catwalk collections for the brand, and would form its own annual summer capsule collection, fronted by the likes of Naomi Campbell and Kendall Jenner.
2. His debut provided seductive riffs on Burberry’s heritage
Tisci’s tenure for Burberry has been defined by is approach to redefining the codes of the heritage brand. To the sounds of Massive Attack, his debut catwalk collection in September 2018 was a tour de force re-imagining of the Burberry archive. He updated ladylike pieces from the 1980s, deconstructed the Burberry mac – a reoccurring theme in Tisci’s design lexicon – and sent out handsome suiting amongst a cohort of wardrobe staples.
3. AW19 celebrated Britain’s dualities
For his sophomore collection, Tisci peppered British bourgeois with rebellious flare. He split the audience into two rooms inside Tate Modern’s Tanks – one wood panelled, the second littered with scaffolding in which models swung from. The collection itself met the properness of Burberry’s past with a street centricity that felt representative of Britain today, where duffle coats walked alongside swollen puffers, rugby shirts became repurposed into cocktail dresses, and both the nova check and the Union Jack were re-embraced.
4. The sexy centaur
For the launch of Burberry’s men’s fragrance Hero in July last year, Tisci recruited Oscar-nominated actor Adam Driver to be the face of the scent. In a film directed by Jonathan Glazer, Driver elegantly horse-back rides into the ocean, before emerging from the water transformed into a sexy centaur. Wait, are we allowed to say that?
5. Supporting British youth with Marcus Rashford
Working alongside Premier League footballer and youth activist Marcus Rashford – who through the pandemic worked tirelessly to provide free school meals nationwide, which helped feed thousands of school children through school half-terms – Burberry funded 200,000 meals which were distributed across 11,000 charities. The brand also provided grants for two Manchester youth centres Rashford attended as a child, as well as 15 youth centres in London.
Burberry furthered its partnership with Rashford by supporting disadvantaged children with their literacy skills. Under Tisci, the brand provided significant funding to transform libraries in 10 schools spread over London, Manchester and Yorkshire, promising to donate 8,000 books in total.
6. ReBurberry Fabric
Partnering with the British Fashion Council, Sarah Mower and Charlie Porter, in December 2020 Burberry launched ReBurberry Fabric: an initiative which would donate the brand’s leftover fabrics to fashion schools across the UK. Set up in the height of the pandemic.
The scheme followed further efforts from Burberry during the pandemic, where the brand donated over 100,000 pieces of PPE to the NHS by re-tooling their Castleford factory – usually reserved for making Burberry’s iconic trenches.
7. Fashioning through the pandemic
As we dipped in and out of lockdowns across both 2020 and 2021, Tisci navigated the move from catwalk to our computer screens with a series of intriguing fashion films during the pandemic. He kicked things off with a live runway-cum-art performance staged in a forest for SS21, which he would follow with two audience-less shows held inside Burberry’s Regent Street flagship. Then came a ravey trip to an East London quarry for the brand’s SS23 menswear offering, and a womenswear collection inspired by animal instincts – where models sprouted their own Bambi ears.
8. Burberry takes flight
Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, last October’s Burberry Open Spaces campaign pushed the boundaries of what fashion film can be. It follows a group of twenty-somethings who venture into a desolate field of wheat, clad in Burberry coats made by the brand’s signature gabardine fabric. An exterritorial force sweeps the quartet up, carrying them mid-air across the British countryside to spellbinding effect.
9. A big nova check comeback
After two years of no physical shows, Tisci made his catwalk comeback in March of this year. The designer said the collection was born of a newfound confidence in embracing Burberry’s Britishness after joining the brand mid-Brexit. The mammoth collection saw Tisci turn trenches into ballgowns, reintroduce Burberry’s galloping Knight logo as a new badge of honour, and sent out his most cohesive menswear outing yet.
10. The swan song
While rumours have been circulating for a while now that Tisci was expected to depart from Burberry, his SS23 show – staged in Bermondsey, South London on Monday – was one sweet swan song. With an all-star cast featuring the likes of Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid, Karen Elson and Erin O’Connor, the collection saw Tisci underscore Burberry signatures with gothic codes which have long been part of his handwriting. Inspired by the British seaside and the soup of different people who flock to them each summer, it was the most Tisci collection of his tenure. A fitting end to his time at the British luxury juggernaut.
Photography courtesy of Burberry.
