Little Simz, Kid Cudi and Kate Moss button up for Burberry’s 170-year trench salute

Leather jackets might be synonymous with rock’n’roll, but nothing holds a stage like a well-cut trench. This year, Burberry is marking 170 years of its most enduring headline act with ‘The Trench, Portraits of an Icon’, a photo series that puts British heritage at the forefront.

Shot in intimate black and white by the ever-dreamlike Tim Walker, the campaign reads like a roll call of culture’s main stage. Little Simz brings poetic poise. Kid Cudi leans into quiet swagger. Kate Moss, trench collar turned up just so, proves once again that British style isn’t so much worn as inhabited.

Rounding out the A-list cast are Daisy Edgar-Jones, Eberechi Eze, Erin O’Connor, Hikaru Utada, Iris Lasnet, J.Y. Park, Jack Draper, Jonathan Bailey, Karen Elson, Kendall Jenner, Kristin Scott Thomas, Matthew Macfadyen, Reece Clarke, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Sora Choi, Teyana Taylor and Wu Lei.

Under the creative direction of Daniel Lee, the trench becomes less of a garment and more of a character actor. Equal parts stoic leading man and shapeshifting ingénue, A belt tied loosely. A silhouette pulled sharp. It’s heritage, but make it personal.

“To celebrate the Burberry trench, an icon of British style and fashion, we invited friends from across the creative world to bring it to life,” explains Lee. ‘Think of it as a tribute to Burberry – a symbol of British style and craftsmanship – and a thank you to the skilled individuals behind every coat.”

That story of the trench began in 1879, when founder Thomas Burberry revolutionised wet weather dressing with the invention of gabardine. The tightly woven, weatherproof cotton changed the game for outerwear and was favoured as initially as a wartime uniform before being coopted across culture.

Now, 170 years on, the house is doubling down on that legacy with an Expanded Heritage Collection: trench and car coats rendered in five distinct silhouettes, each nodding to Britain’s long romance with rain. Signature styles include The Kensington, Waterloo and Chelsea trench coats, alongside the Mayfair trench jacket (a cropped, contemporary cut that feels ready for the encore).

Every coat is crafted in England at Burberry’s Castleford manufacturing site, cut from 100 per cent cotton gabardine. Proof that innovation doesn’t need a remix when the original still hits this hard.

There’s also a documentary film set to a soundtrack by Blur – because if you’re going to soundtrack modern Britain, you may as well call in the Britpop canon. The result is a portrait not just of a coat, but of a country: creative, confident and outward-looking.

Discover Burberry’s ‘The Trench, Portraits of an Icon’ campaign at burberry.com.