Burberry is taking the idea of a holiday house party to cinematic extremes for its 170th anniversary. The British luxury brand’s new campaign, Wrapped in Burberry: Celebrating 170 Years, places an eclectic cast at Longleat House in Wiltshire for countryside walks, games, presents, golf buggy races and, eventually, a mirror-ball-lit disco.
The short film is directed by Harmony Korine and features Pierce Brosnan and Fiona Shaw as the hosts of the gathering. Cara Delevingne, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade are part of the wider ensemble, alongside Brosnan’s son Dylan, Nico Parker, Kim Min-ha and Wu Lei. Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, makes a cameo at the historic estate.
It is a very deliberately dressed-up form of seasonal escapism: the kind where the party has expanded beyond the dining room, someone has apparently authorized competitive buggy driving, and the former 007 is headed for the dance floor. Brosnan’s appearance also lands while Bond casting remains a subject of constant pop-culture chatter; the latest conversation around James Bond speculation is a useful reminder that the role’s cultural shadow follows its stars for a long time.
A party film built around a milestone
The campaign’s central occasion is Burberry’s 170th year. Rather than framing that anniversary as a museum-piece retrospective, the film uses a social gathering to put familiar brand ideas—outerwear, checks, British settings and formal dressing—into motion. The location, guest list and sequence of activities combine polished luxury imagery with a knowingly unruly party premise.
Daniel Lee, Burberry’s chief creative officer, described the intended formula simply: family, friends, gifts and dressing up, all organized as a proper party. That framing matters because it explains why the film’s cast is not confined to one entertainment lane. Actors, models and sports figures share the same setting, while Longleat supplies the grand-house backdrop.
Korine is an especially unconventional fit for a traditional holiday-campaign template. The filmmaker is known for Spring Breakers and Gummo, works associated with distinctive, often disruptive visual worlds. Here, his involvement signals that the campaign is aiming for more than a conventional catalogue-style showcase. The supplied details point to a glossy celebration with moments of absurdity: golf buggies and a late-night disco sit beside country walks and gift exchanges.
The soundtrack likewise steers the finale away from predictable festive music. The dance sequence uses Sylvester and Patrick Cowley’s 1982 track Do You Wanna Funk?. That choice gives the final party scene a disco pulse rather than a traditional Christmas one, with Brosnan dancing while Shaw eventually takes refuge on a sofa after the celebrations run long.
What is actually in the holiday collection?
The clothes and accessories connected to the campaign concentrate heavily on cashmere. In practical terms, cashmere is a soft natural fiber often used for knitwear and cold-weather accessories; within this range, it functions as the material thread linking scarves, capes, sweaters and outerwear styling. The collection uses the seasonal film to foreground tangible gift categories rather than a single hero piece.
Related coverage includes Burberry Marks 170 Years With a Holiday Party Film and Cashmere Collection.
Among the headline products are fresh versions of the Kensington trench coat in ivory, black, navy, camel and bouquet pink. The Kensington is identified as a signature Burberry trench, so these color options extend a core outerwear silhouette rather than introduce an unrelated seasonal shape.
Other pieces include:
- Cashmere capes finished with shearling collars.
- Embroidered sweaters.
- Scottish-made House Check scarves offered in more than 40 colorways.
- Velvet vanity cases.
- Check bouclé handbags.
- Children’s interpretations of the brand’s recognizable outerwear.
- Dog accessories, including check sweaters and bandanas.
“House Check” refers here to the brand’s signature checked pattern, while bouclé describes a textured fabric with looped yarns. Those details make the lineup broader than a simple cold-weather capsule: it extends from clothing to personal accessories, gift objects, children’s pieces and pet wear. For shoppers, that variety means the campaign’s styling concept translates into items at notably different levels of commitment—from a scarf or earrings to a full trench coat, or a dog bandana for the household member who refuses to pose for a family photo.
The product list reaches beyond the party wardrobe
Burberry has also highlighted a range of individual holiday offerings that crosses several categories. The list includes a Check Cashmere Scarf, Check Hoop Earrings, an Etched Knight Cotton T-Shirt, a Check Wool Stocking, the Kensington Heritage Trench Coat, a City Check Bifold Wallet and a Cropped Tropical Gabardine Mayfair Trench Jacket.
There is also a Burberry x Smythson Panama Leather Soho Notebook. The inclusion of a notebook is a small but telling indication of how broadly holiday collections can define “gift.” It shifts the emphasis from apparel alone to branded objects intended for giving, using or displaying.
The named products also clarify the balance of materials in the range. Cashmere is the thematic anchor, but it is not the only textile in play: cotton, wool, leather, velvet, bouclé and gabardine are all represented in the collection description or product names. Gabardine, notably, is a tightly woven fabric commonly associated with durable outerwear; its appearance in the Mayfair trench jacket reinforces the outerwear focus alongside the softer cashmere pieces.
Why the casting works for a fashion campaign
Fashion films often use casting as a kind of shorthand. Brosnan brings decades of screen association with suave formalwear, a quality the film can play with by moving him from stately surroundings to a disco floor. Shaw offers a contrasting presence: the detail of her retiring to the sofa adds a grounded, comic coda to an otherwise increasingly extravagant evening.
Meanwhile, Delevingne, Union, Wade, Parker, Kim and Wu broaden the campaign’s cultural reach across fashion, film, television and sport. The result is a group portrait instead of a single-celebrity endorsement. Each guest contributes to the notion of a mixed, multigenerational party rather than appearing to sell a separate product category.
Longleat House is equally important to that equation. Its Wiltshire setting provides the English-country-house imagery that supports the campaign’s emphasis on Britishness, but the party activities keep it from becoming solemn heritage theatre. A disco under an oversized mirror ball is a hard look to maintain if everyone is acting like they are attending a portrait sitting.
Analysis: heritage, but with the volume turned up
The campaign’s clearest strategy is to make a major brand anniversary feel social rather than archival. “Heritage” in fashion usually means a brand’s accumulated history, recognizable codes and long-running product identities. Burberry’s check, trench coats and association with British outerwear are the elements doing that work here. But the film packages them as the wardrobe of a chaotic-yet-glamorous gathering instead of presenting them as artifacts.
That makes the 170-year milestone approachable without reducing it to a history lesson. The clothes appear in a context built around familiar holiday rituals—walking, exchanging gifts, playing games and staying at the party too long. The unusual additions, particularly buggy races and the disco finale, give the campaign enough contrast to distinguish it from a more standard luxury seasonal film.
Korine’s direction is part of that contrast. The available information does not establish the film’s full visual approach beyond its setting and events, so it would be a stretch to assign it a particular style. Still, choosing a filmmaker with a recognizable body of work suggests Burberry wants the campaign to register as a creative collaboration, not merely a celebrity-packed advertisement.
The collection follows the same logic. The brand’s staples remain visible in the Kensington trench and House Check scarves, but they are surrounded by seasonal textures, gifting items and playful extensions such as dogwear. The effect is a holiday range that offers a few obvious wardrobe centerpieces while making room for smaller accessories and novelty-leaning presents.
For audiences interested chiefly in the film, the draw is the cast and the collision between grand English interiors and dance-floor energy. For fashion-minded viewers, the useful takeaway is more specific: cashmere and check scarves are the collection’s strongest stated through-lines, trench coats remain central, and the offering extends well beyond adult outerwear. Burberry’s anniversary party, in other words, is being asked to do several jobs at once—celebrate the past, sell the season and make sure somebody, somewhere, leaves with a check sweater for their dog.
