Check’s New Mate: Daniel Lee Shares His Vision for Burberry
Just after settling in, Lee’s to start with get of company has been receiving to know the teams. He’s also been building trips—to Florence, where by the enterprise has a leather products and shoes facility to Castleford for the trenches and to the archive, which is break up in between London and Blyth, in the North of England. “I’ve been on the lookout at the beginnings of the 3 major codes of the household, which are naturally the test, the knight, and the gabardine, and trying to understand how we can be influenced to acquire them forward.”
The brand name was established 166 several years ago when a younger Thomas Burberry begun manufacturing clothes to ward off the British climate. He’s credited with inventing gabardine, a tightly woven waterproof wool, circa 1879. Performance is the idea that Lee has latched on to: “It’s actually [about] design with indicating, that is progressive with a function, as opposed to just staying impressive for a new silhouette or a new development or method. Thomas Burberry’s intention was to make clothing for men and women that had been outside doing matters,” he goes on. “It’s a lot more of that mentality that I’m trying to get myself into.”
As the dialogue turns to the genuine vogue, Lee leans in. “Think about the trench coat—it’s been all over for many years. So what is the bag that can stand the examination of time like that trench coat? What is the shoe? What is the overcoat that lives legitimately up coming to the trench and will be around for a extremely very long time? We’re contemplating about the sensation of the outdoors,” he states. “It’s not necessarily about an overcoat, but also about heat, tactility, and coziness. And about becoming on the shift, and not remaining weighed down. I’m rather energized about beginning with a winter season demonstrate, mainly because I believe it makes a lot of feeling for Burberry.”
Lee is some thing of an outdoorsman himself. For the duration of the 12 months concerning Bottega Veneta and Burberry, he traveled to Botswana and Zimbabwe. “Botswana, in particular, was outstanding,” he suggests, “because it is a single of the least inhabited countries on the planet. It grounds you in a way to be close to the animals.” He also hiked to Machu Picchu and went to Cuba—twice.
We will not have to wait until the runway show to get our initial clue about the way Lee’s heading. Final month, he shot his very first Burberry campaign with Tyrone Lebon, the London-born photographer with whom he collaborated at Bottega Veneta. It capabilities Burberry classics, viewed via Lee’s lens, and is established to launch in early February on all the common channels. (It’s a far more traditional media method than the 1 he carried out at Bottega Veneta, which famously deleted all of its Instagram articles, then deactivated its account, in favor of a “digital journal.”)