Burberry launches It's Always Burberry Weather

Outerwear, weather and the British landscape

On 9 September 2024, Burberry launches the campaign It's Always Burberry Weather under Chief Creative Officer Daniel Lee. The campaign re-anchors the house in outerwear and the British landscape and is photographed by British image-maker Alasdair McLellan in London and across the English and Scottish countryside. Cast members include Olivia Colman, Barry Keoghan, Cara Delevingne, Little Simz, Zhang Jingyi, Lennon Gallagher and the footballers Cole Palmer and Eberechi Eze. The launch combines stills, a cinematic film, archive illustration revivals, global out-of-home placements, store window displays and pop-ups, and is positioned as an annually returning brand platform rather than a single seasonal campaign.

A platform built around a single line

The line It's Always Burberry Weather is presented as a brand platform rather than a tagline tied to a single product. It captures a recurring British observation about weather as a national topic and ties it directly to Burberry's foundational category of protective outerwear. The line is short, plainly written and built to extend across multiple chapters and seasons. Daniel Lee describes the campaign as a celebration of the house's dedication to protection, function and the outdoors, and emphasises that the silhouettes presented are designed to be enduring rather than seasonal.

Casting as cultural map

The cast moves across British acting, music, sport and modelling rather than locking into a single discipline. Olivia Colman and Barry Keoghan extend the campaign into film. Little Simz contributes a presence rooted in London hip-hop and contemporary British music. Cole Palmer and Eberechi Eze, both in the senior England squad, bring the campaign into men's football, a category that has become central to British cultural conversation in the 2020s. Lennon Gallagher and Cara Delevingne provide a continuing thread to Burberry's earlier campaign casts and connect the new platform to the house's recent visual memory. The cumulative effect places Burberry in a contemporary British public square rather than in an abstract international luxury setting.

Photography that reads as documentary

Alasdair McLellan is one of the most consistent visual chroniclers of contemporary British identity and has worked for Burberry, the British Fashion Council and a long list of music and editorial clients. His pictures for the campaign are framed as portraits made within weather rather than against it. Subjects are seen in rain, mist, low light, on coastline and city streets, dressed in trench coats, puffers, anoraks, quilted jackets and check accessories. The treatment privileges direct, observational tone over the highly produced studio aesthetic that dominated luxury advertising during the late 2010s. The intent is to make the outerwear look used rather than displayed.

Archive illustration as design device

The campaign revives Burberry archive illustrations, reproducing them across out-of-home, print and store environments. The use of illustration is consistent with the broader visual programme established under Daniel Lee since the February 2023 identity refresh, in which archive iconography and the Equestrian Knight Design have been brought back into rotation. Archive illustration introduces a graphic register that sits alongside the photographic campaign and gives Burberry an additional, ownable visual layer that competitor houses cannot easily replicate.

Retail and out-of-home as the second canvas

It's Always Burberry Weather is not contained inside paid media. Burberry uses store windows, pop-ups, in-store activations and city out-of-home placements to extend the campaign into the physical environment. London, in particular, becomes a primary stage, with the campaign visible across Bond Street, Knightsbridge and the brand's flagship at 1 Sloane Street. The retail extension allows the campaign to operate as a brand experience rather than as a discrete seasonal advertisement and is one reason the platform is constructed to return year on year.

Strategic continuity from the 2023 reset

The platform sits in a clear strategic line from the February 2023 identity reset. Where the 2023 announcement reset the visual layer of the house, It's Always Burberry Weather operates on the messaging and product layer. It explains in plain terms what the house is for and which category it owns. By committing to outerwear and weather as the brand's core territory, Burberry chooses focus over breadth at a moment when much of luxury is moving in the opposite direction. The platform extends in 2025 with the chapter London in Love, photographed by McLellan in February and released around Valentine's Day, confirming the original intent to treat It's Always Burberry Weather as a long-running editorial vehicle for the house.