Green Fingers Are In: Fashion Is Delighting in the Garden
Floating around London's Chelsea Flower Show as dusk is about to fall, the air is thick, the herbal scents of salvia and geranium offset by the minty nepeta and the flouncing citrus sucker punch of verbana. If you're lucky, you'll get a quick hit of the just-debuted Catherine's Rose, a coral-pink floribunda rose named after the Princess of Wales, which smells of mango and Turkish delight.
Amid the floral pavilions and hulking vegetative displays, and past the Pimm's stall, Burberry has brought together the fashion crowd to celebrate its latest collection, itself inspired by the Royals. It's not haute couture, it's hort(-iculture) couture.
Here, at the world's most prestigious gardening and floral design event, the British house welcomed the likes of Bianca Jagger, Jason Isaacs, and Jerry Hall to a dinner for the launch of its fourth Highgrove x Burberry collaboration. The collection takes cues from the lush gardens that surround the Cotswolds-set private residence of the British King Charles III and Queen Camilla. It includes tailored pieces and knitwear, silk scarves, pajama-like separates, and the house's classic trench coats, all featuring hand-drawn prints by artist Helen Bullock, who created the works based on the colorful scenes of Highgrove's Kitchen Garden. (Several fashion brands hold a Royal Warrant—basically, a special designation that allows them to use the royal arms to show they're monarchy-approved—with Burberry holding its own since 1955.)
'Burberry has a deep appreciation for British places and landscapes,' says Carly Eck, a curator and archivist at Burberry. 'There are many synergies between Burberry and Highgrove, notably in supporting British artists, respecting nature, and championing UK craft and manufacturing.'
Photo: Courtesy of Burberry
Photo: Courtesy of Burberry
The last few seasons have seen fashion locked in an intense love affair with food—from Moschino's pasta bag to A.P.C.'s olive oil, and the 'tomato girls' of TikTok storming the coastal towns of Italy in broderie anglaise and fruit-printed head scarves. But fashion has long rooted around the garden for inspiration. Last June, Loewe quite literally said: When life gives you tomatoes, make a viral It bag. After a popular tweet compared the fruit to a Loewe design, Jonathan Anderson posted the tweet to his personal Instagram account—and later revealed the prototype for a tomato-shaped clutch bag. ('Meme to reality,' he captioned it.)
Last year, Maria Grazia Chiuri's Dior Cruise 2025 collection reveled in Scottish Highlands-ready tweeds and tartans in a show staged at Drummond Castle in Perthshire. Longchamp's summer 2025 collection, the earth and grassy-toned 'Live Green,' found its inspiration in the pastoral picnic settings of the French countryside. While bold floral motifs proliferate from Dolce & Gabbana to Marc Jacobs, smaller brands have long laid their own (flower) beds: Gardenheir was founded by two avid gardeners, with Martha Stewart-inspired straw hats, actual gardening tools, and clogs that attract the real heads and aesthetic gardeners alike. And Niwaki is a fashionable gardener's fave, a garden tool shop, run by a former buyer for Paul Smith, that has collaborated with Ulla Johnson and streetwear brand Noah.
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