Burberry marks 170 years with a free V&A exhibition on the trench coat's history
Burberry is marking its 170th anniversary with a free exhibition on the trench coat's history at London's V&A — and using the show to preview a permanent gallery the museum will open under its name in 2028.
Burberry is marking its 170th anniversary with a free exhibition tracing the history of its signature trench coat, staged in partnership with London's Victoria and Albert Museum, the company said in a 28 July announcement.
The exhibition, titled "The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon," runs from 21 September 2026 to 3 January 2027 in the V&A's Prince Consort Gallery at its South Kensington site and is free to attend, according to Burberry.
The display is built around three sections, the company said. "Invention" traces the coat back to the water-resistant cotton gabardine Burberry developed in 1879; "Craft" walks through construction details such as the hand-finished collar and the House Check lining; "Creativity" brings together 19 runway looks spanning past decades, credited to designers including Daniel Lee and Christopher Bailey. A number of pieces go on public display for the first time, Burberry said, among them early 20th-century catalogues and a trench coat once worn by the British designer Hardy Amies.
Burberry's brand curator, Carly Eck, described the coat in the announcement as "a global design icon rooted in British craftsmanship," while the V&A's senior curator, Oriole Cullen, said the museum's own holdings would be shown alongside pieces from the Burberry Archive.
The free show previews something bigger. Burberry said it is supporting a permanent Burberry Gallery inside the V&A, due to open in autumn 2028 as part of a wider overhaul of the museum's fashion galleries — a considerably larger and more durable commitment than a four-month display.
A free exhibition costs relatively little to stage and buys a maison something a marketing campaign cannot: a national museum's imprimatur attached permanently to its name. For a house whose signature product is, unusually, a functional garment rather than a monogram or a bag, borrowing that authority to frame the coat as design history rather than merchandise looks like the more durable line in this announcement than the exhibition dates themselves.