V&A's Burberry trench coat display will mark 170 years of fashion brand
- maxwell museums
- 1 minute ago
- 2 min read
A Burberry display is coming to the V&A in London — and it will shine a spotlight on the fashion brand’s much-loved and enduring trench coat.
The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon will open on 21 September 2026 and will be a free display to coincide with Burberry’s 170th anniversary. The beige “fashion staple” will be explored through rare materials from both the Burberry archive and the V&A collection.
Visitors will be able to trace the history of the Burberry trench from its origins as practical outerwear and military attire all the way to it's position as a global fashion favourite loved by celebrities including Kate Moss, Kendall Jenner, Madonna and Jonathan Bailey.
The display comes just over a year since it was announced Burberry will be helping fund an overhaul of the V&A’s fashion gallery.
What to expect in The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon
Beginning with a section called Invention, the display explores Thomas Burberry’s creation of cotton gabardine in 1879 and how its use in the Burberry trench established the coat as a sought-after piece of protective outerwear. It will go on to highlight the trench’s evolution into a design classic.
There’ll then be a focus on the ‘craft’ that goes into creating the coat, and the show will examine details such as the hand-finished collar and distinctive House Check lining, the storm flap and detachable throat latch, all of which provide protection for changeable weather.
The display concludes with Creativity, a section spotlighting 19 standout runway looks from the past two-and-a-half-decades, including designs by Chief Creative Officers Daniel Lee and Christopher Bailey, which will celebrate the continued reinvention of the Burberry trench.
Oriole Cullen, Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the V&A, said Burberry’s trench coat was “a British fashion staple that has stood the test of time and continues to evolve over a century on.”
And according to Carly Eck, Brand Curator at Burberry, visitors are promised “a myriad of objects from the brand’s archive will be publicly exhibited for the first time — from early 20th-century catalogues to a Burberry trench coat worn by fashion designer Hardy Amies”.
This new exhibition is part of a multi-year partnership between the V&A and Burberry, with the main focus being the overhaul of the museum’s fashion gallery. It’s one of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s largest dedicated permanent galleries and this is its first major renovation since 1962.
When it reopens, it’ll be renamed the Burberry Gallery as the fashion house has paid for naming rights. But the project is already running behind the initial schedule. It closed in May 2025 and was due to remain off-limits for only two years. But recently the completion date has significantly shifted, with reopening now delayed until Autumn 2028.
In the interim, fashion-loving visitors have been treated to a blockbuster exhibition on Elsa Schiaparelli. While other highlight exhibitions at the V&A this year include a survey of Istanbul's history.