With Burberry reporting a revenue drop of 21% in the three months before June, and with even more dire predictions ahead, designer Daniel Lee and incoming chief executive Joshua Schulman are tasked with turning around a brand that has faced claims of alienating its customer base. The array of outerwear in Burberry’s Summer collection, drawing on livery and military styles, echoed this sense of a battle, at least in a stylistic representation. The show opened with a cropped, double-breasted trench jacket featuring a detachable inner lining and storm flaps. Its energy was matched by a femme version, styled with shorts that fell below the knee and featured back vents.

Another trench style was given a soft dressing makeover in the form of a short-sleeve dress with buckles at the neck and waist. The next iteration of the trench—which famously outfitted infantrymen in World War I—featured a marabou feather collar in sky blue, with a frilled dress beneath the belted coat in a shade of lazuline.

This signalled a section that departed towards streetwear. There were hooded nylon capes and parkas worn by Edie Campbell, both trimmed with marabou instead of fur (real or faux). A coordinated set, seemingly a hybrid of a flying or boiler suit, appeared in dark Burberry check, featuring statement black zips and diagonal pockets. Two all-black looks, save for printed neckerchiefs, featured pockets, spanner loops, zipped security pockets, and rings hanging off the belt loops—serious and durable counterpoints to the predominance of luxury wool outerwear on display.

Further interpretations of nylon outerwear appeared later in the collection, including a grey parka worn over an icy blue sequinned party dress in a 1920s style. Millennials raised on glossy magazines and familiar with Burberry's campaigns from that era could spot references to Spring/Summer 2010, when achieving contrast in dressing was popularised by figures like Sadie Frost and Kate Moss. A shrunken, washed leather jacket paired with a chiffon skirt featuring a thigh-high slit in light slate grey offered an alternative to this juxtaposition.

Workwear and military elements returned to Lee’s process midway through the presentation, with mackintosh outerwear in dim grey, where Lee had added a zip-off placket that buttoned onto the front of the garment; other garments have patch pockets fastened by buckle closures. Trousers featured a central zip running up the front, exposing the knee. Before this, Lee explored outerwear through a historicist lens, presenting feminine and masculine versions of cavalry-style jackets, both bearing an emblem of the letter 'B' encased in an oval frame. Another version of this jacket featured front slashes done up with tortoiseshell buttons—an entirely new take on this garment style.

Burberry's traditional outerwear in honey served as inspiration for the collection's later transition to a more subdued colour scheme. Tangerine insertions appeared, including a sequinned and frilled tank in beaver brown paired with drill pants. This finale tugs at nostalgia for Spring/Summer 2014 and the accompanying campaign shot by Mario Testino. This was a celebration of that signature check, originally conceived as a coat lining, and which resonates with both "chavs" and the Sloane Ranger set alike. While we cannot ignore the challenges facing this fashion house, as well as the broader luxury sector with a cooling Chinese market, Lee’s clever melding of Burberry's more recent 2000s history with a modern, knowing slant gives confidence in what lies ahead.