Will Daniel Lee Take His Final Bow for Burberry at Monday’s Show?
Speculation is mounting that the designer, who joined Burberry in 2022, will leave the company later this year, with his final collection for fall 2025.
By SAMANTHA CONTI FEBRUARY 21, 2025, 12:01AM
LEE’S FAREWELL? Will
Daniel Lee take his final bow for
Burberry at Monday’s show that caps off
LondonFashion Week? Industry sources said the designer is preparing to leave the company, and could be gone as early as August.
Members of the creative and design teams working for Lee are said to be job hunting in anticipation of his potential exit from the brand, which he joined in 2022, succeeding
Riccardo Tisci.
A
Burberry spokesman said the company does not comment on speculation.
Rumors have been rife for months that Lee is ready to exit following the departure last summer of
Jonathan Akeroyd, the chief executive officer who hired him. Akeroyd had been hoping that Lee would replicate his success at
Bottega Veneta and supercharge Burberry’s fledgling leather accessories business.
Although Lee has done some beautiful work for Burberry, the winning accessories styles never materialized and the British brand is now moving in another direction under CEO
Josh Schulman, who joined Burberry last summer following Akeroyd’s exit.
Schulman has been focusing on the Burberry brand, rather than on the runway, and promoting Burberry icons such as the scarf, the check and the trench. He has also been working hard to win back core customers.
In November, Schulman told financial analysts that over the past several years, Burberry had moved “too far from our core, with disappointing results.”
He said there was too much focus on being “modern at the expense of celebrating our heritage. We introduced new brand codes and signifiers that were unfamiliar to our customers. Our product was weighted to seasonal fashion with a niche aesthetic obscuring our more timeless core collections.”
Schulman added that as Burberry pursued brand elevation, “our pricing, particularly in leather goods, did not always align with our category authority. Consequently, Burberry’s offer was skewed to a narrow base of luxury customers.”
With a flawed strategy, and against a challenging backdrop for luxury, Burberry reported a 22 percent decline in first-half revenue and an operating loss of 53 million pounds in fiscal 2024-25.
Although third-quarter holiday trading was surprisingly robust — comparable store sales dipped 4 percent compared with analysts’ expectations of a 12 percent drop — Burberry remains on a long road to recovery.
Since he joined last summer, Schulman has been fulsome in his praise for Lee, calling him a talented designer.
In September, after the runway show, Lee returned the compliment, saying Schulman brought a fresh “sense of American optimism, which I think is really nice. I enjoy his drive, his positivity, and his way of communication.”
Speculation about Lee’s exit comes amid a flurry of designer changes at the big European brands, which have been hit hard by a slowdown in demand from China in particular. The challenging environment has prompting CEOs and brand owners to retool their strategies and devise new ways to attract customers.
WWD
