Burberry’s Riccardo Tisci on the Queen’s influence on fashion

Burberry’s autumn winter digital show has been a long time coming – most designers showed weeks ago. But when the Duke of Edinburgh died, this behemoth of a British luxury fashion brand, with its two Royal Warrants (to The Queen and Prince Charles), decided to post-pone out of respect.

“I’ve been so touched by those amazing images of her these past few days," Riccardo Tisci, Burberry’s Italian Creative Director tells me. “She’s a woman of few words, but they’re always the right words ".

When I asked whether The Queen had been amongst the women who’ve influenced his designs over the years (they are, after all, a diverse group, taking in Rihanna, Stella Tennant, a Kardashian or two, his eight older sisters and his 92 year old mother, who recently recovered from Covid), he retorted by asking “which designers haven’t been influenced by the Queen? She’s one of the most elegant, appropriate and polite figures in the world and part of what makes the UK such a fascinating place for me to be, because it’s the antithesis of that rebelliousness that’s also here.

“This country has a strain of eccentricity running through it that’s not like other countries’ eccentricity, because it’s not confined to youth,” Tisci continues. “Here you have eccentricity celebrated among all ages. It’s not just about being camp. It’s a mental thing that comes from a certain kind of confidence”.

Stella Tennant, the aristocratic supermodel who died last year, epitomised this for Tisci. “She was such a big part of my life, and there at the key moments in my career, when I was designing for Givenchy and Nike, was always so stylish even though in theory she was often wearing the ‘wrong’ thing.”

At first glance, this new collection, entitled Femininity, is a paen to classic power dressing. Filmed in the curved architecture of Burberry’s flagship store on London’s Regent’s Street, strong shoulders, swagger-worthy fur coats, gold trenches, sequin-drenched silks, glittering mesh dresses, capes featuring an exploded version of Burberry’s famous check and 10cm heels fleshed out a collection that is the flip side of the romantic, bucolic British sensibility that Tisci’s predecessor, Christopher Bailey often tapped into.

Regarding those heels, one is tempted to say, really? Tisci laughs when I ask how, after a year of athleisure, he imagines we’ll be ready for stiletto thigh high boots. “I think so many of us can’t wait to dress up again. But I agree, no one is prepared to be uncomfortable anymore. I promise these heels are comfortable – they’re all slightly different, to complement the way the woman wearing them walks. As for those stretchy leather thigh boots – “they’re a practical way to show your body, if that’s what you want, without revealing skin.”

There I concur. Burberry’s over-the- knee boots might be a bit extreme for some, but an OTK boot has become one of those surprisingly versatile, cross-generational buys that enable the wearing of a silky dress even on a chilly day, and makes short skirts possible for women in the past might have ruled them out on the basis of their age.

Other subtle departures from the Power Dressing tropes of old included fluttery cape back dresses and those furry Cruella de Vil coats, which turned out to be fake.

Under Tisci’s tenure, Burberry has abandoned the real thing - along with Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Versace. “Especially with covid we’ve seen the importance of nature,” says Tisci. "I think big companies like Burberry have a responsibility to support animals and with modern fabrications you absolutely don’t have to kill them to look glamorous.”

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