Justine Picardie: 'Search dusty attics or muddy boot rooms for forgotten trench coats and sally forth, as gallant Britannic ambassadors'

If Burberry has come to signify a quintessentially British style, it also represents the quicksilver nature of national identity, for, even in our class-conscious society, the brand has been adopted as a uniform across the social divide, spanning grouse moors and football terraces, worn by everyone from the late Duke of Edinburgh to Liam Gallagher.

Indeed, the company’s signature check became front-page news in 2002 after the EastEnders soap star Danniella Westbrook was snapped with her baby daughter in co-ordinating head-to-toe outfits, complete with a matching pram. ‘CHAVTASTIC!’ declared The Sun at the time, with gleeful delight.

Yet, despite solemn nay-sayers predicting the death of the brand, it continued to flourish, doubtless helped by the fact that it remained admirably practical for country sporting pursuits, with a durability evident in Elizabeth II’s hardworking Burberry raincoats.

‘Icon’ is a hackneyed term in fashion and, indeed, the wider culture, but it does seem to me appropriate for the title of the exhibition opening on September 21 at the V&A Museum. ‘The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon’ celebrates the brand’s 170th anniversary, tracing its history from 19th-century artisanship to the contemporary runways of London Fashion Week.

Founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry — an enterprising 21-year-old draper who established his eponymous outfitters in Basingstoke in Hampshire — the business expanded thanks to his patented 1879 invention of weatherproof gabardine (a sturdy material that is still woven today in Yorkshire).

In 1891, Burberry opened its first flagship store on London’s Haymarket, followed by Paris in 1909 and Buenos Aires in 1912. The polar explorer Ernest Shackleton took it even further afield, wearing Burberry gabardine on his Antarctic expeditions in the early 20th century.

During the First World War, the brand’s gabardine coats acquired their famous military associations, advertised as ‘trenches’ that would be repaired free of charge for serving officers. Burberry was successful, too, in appealing to adventurous women, designing female mountaineering outfits as early as 1908 and for the pioneering aviator Betty Kirby-Green in the 1930s. This, perhaps, was the beginning of a subtle shift towards transatlantic chic, when Hollywood film stars such as Greta Garbo began wearing trench coats, suggesting an androgynous, yet glamorous mystique.

By the 1960s, the pendulum of fashion had swung back again to London, and Burberry’s signature check, originally introduced in the 1920s as a coat-lining, began appearing on accessories and umbrellas, exported around the world as jaunty emblems of a semi-imaginary English landscape.

Patrick Lichfield’s advertising campaigns added a charmingly graceful touch, depicting Burberry-clad models in the picturesque gardens of country houses (including the maze at Hever Castle, Kent) or alongside the Household Cavalry.

Several generations of the Royal Family remained loyal to Burberry — from George VI and the Queen Mother to the young Prince Charles and Princess Diana — and Catherine, the current Princess of Wales, has followed their example.

Yet the appropriation of the brand as subversive streetwear, embraced by mods, punks and the Britpop stars of the 1990s, has revealed its chameleon-like capacity to shape-shift through successive decades.

In an era in which some commentators are prone to dwell on the divisions in our society, I find it reassuring that Thomas Burberry’s egalitarian vision of robust textiles and tailoring still endures. Remarkably, his legacy has not fossilised into a fusty form of nostalgia; instead, it has proved to have the resilience and flexibility to run like a thread through our shared sartorial heritage, as well as forming new patterns, and standing boldly at the cutting edge of taste.

In this sense, it has a delightful quality in common with Country Life —and so I urge readers of all ages to search dusty attics or muddy boot rooms for forgotten trench coats and sally forth, as gallant Britannic ambassadors, with heads held high.

This feature originally appeared in the September 16, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.