Just two days after the debut of Riccardo Tisci’s Spring 2023 Burberry collection, the brand has announced a major new change in direction.
Daniel Lee, the 38-year-old Brit who led a slick reboot of Bottega Veneta before abruptly departing the brand late last year, will lead the heritage English brand as chief creative officer.
The new role for Lee has been rumored for months, but still comes as a surprise to many in the industry given the mystery surrounding his exit from Bottega. Lee’s Bottega shows were packed with bold and strange fabrications, intense colors, and unusual shapes, not to mention his hit jumbo intrecciato handbags and bulbous boots, almost all bonafide fashion hits. Lee was a maverick as a creative director, leading the house to delete Instagram and produce digital zines packed with music, art, and cover stars like Missy Elliott. He is also a subculture fanatic; what ended up being Lee’s final show was a twitchy homage to Detroit’s techno history. (Matthieu Blazy, who had been working alongside Lee at the brand, immediately took over as Bottega’s head designer late last year and has produced two ecstatically received collections.)
At a brand like Burberry, the ability to take a few recognized luxury signatures and implode them is the key to success. The brand is not a red carpet player (though Lee could potentially change that); instead, plaid, beige, and the famous trench are the elements that its design lead has to work with. This was frankly something that Tisci, an Italian, struggled with; his romantic, deadly serious Baroque style never quite gelled with the luxury sportswear ideal that his predecessor Christopher Bailey established. Tisci would be far more at home at a brand that runs towards chaos—like Versace.
So Lee brings another significant layer to the brand: he is a millennial Brit, leading a British brand in a moment of extreme national struggle after the death of the Queen and the election of Conservative prime minister Liz Truss, not to mention Brexit and the lingering trauma of the pandemic. In that light—and considering the formula that made his reign at Bottega so successful—Lee may be an even better fit at Burberry than he was at Bottega. And he might have something powerful to say about patriotism and identity come his first show in February. He starts Monday, October 3rd.
Rachel Tashjian is the Fashion News Director at Harper’s Bazaar, working across print and digital platforms. Previously, she was GQ’s first fashion critic, and worked as deputy editor of GARAGE and as a writer at Vanity Fair. She has written for publications including Bookforum and Artforum, and is the creator of the invitation-only newsletter Opulent Tips.
