Two Coats, One British Weather: Barbour and Burberry
Burberry Touch was the first designer perfume I ever owned. I was 11 when my grandmother bought it for me, and I still buy it now. I wore it to my year 6 prom, and I remember how the fresh scent lifted my spirits and how many compliments it brought my way. I’ve loved Burberry ever since, and I think that bottle is where it started.
I wrote recently about Barbour, after Tartan Reimagined at the Saatchi Gallery, and about the waxed jacket that swamped me as a six-year-old in my mum’s heels. So when the V&A opened The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon, it felt like the other half of the story. Two British brands, both made for the weather, and both tied for me to the women who shaped how I think about clothes.
Built for the rain
Barbour’s roots go back to 1894 and oilskins for sailors and fishermen. Burberry’s story starts earlier, with Thomas Burberry’s invention of cotton gabardine in 1879. Both began as practical answers to unpredictable British weather. For Burberry, that practicality later took on a wartime role: a 1939 trench on display carries the crown and star of a lieutenant colonel on its epaulettes, a reminder of how popular the coat was with British officers in both World Wars.
The craft behind the coat
At Saatchi, the highlight was watching repairs and rewaxing happen live. The V&A takes a different route and takes the trench apart on display: the storm flap, the House Check lining, even the high back vent that lets the wearer move freely, with a mid-way button for extra protection from the weather. One shows a coat being kept alive, the other a coat being studied.
What stayed with me was the smallest coat in the room: a honey-beige child’s trench from 1970, hung beside an old advert warning parents off rubberised raincoats. The label notes that its relaxed fit left room to grow. I thought of myself at six, swallowed by a waxed jacket, and realised that’s exactly how these coats work: you’re handed them a size too big and expected to grow into them.
Tradition, reinvented
Barbour’s tartan and its Re-Loved collaborations with Gucci, Erdem and Paul Smith show a heritage brand moving with fashion. Burberry’s version is the “Creativity” section, with 19 runway looks from the last two and a half decades. My favourite moment was the contrast between eras: Christopher Bailey’s pop-pink metallic trench for Spring/Summer 2013, all laminated shine and futurism, and Daniel Lee’s Winter 2025 look, where a patterned trench opens onto a skirt of fringe, inspired by British country houses. Same belt, same storm flap, wildly different weather.
The trench keeps evolving. For Spring/Summer 2027, Daniel Lee teamed up with Celia Birtwell, who created brand-new graphics for the collection: faces, florals, and the Burberry check reworked as gingham and stripes. Her designs helped set the palette and the optimistic, playful tone. A coat built for grey skies, now dressed for a better mood.
Why we keep them
The V&A shows how quickly the trench stopped being purely functional. Barbour’s repairs suggest the opposite: a coat’s value grows the longer you wear it. Both are true. What lasts isn’t only the cloth but what it comes to mean. A museum can preserve a coat, but a family keeps it by wearing it.
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