Burberry’s new high summer campaign, released Tuesday, is more than a seasonal collection. It is a visual essay on the British romance with the lido, the public outdoor pools that have shaped national leisure for generations. This nostalgia, captured by photographer Ryan McGinley, connects directly to lingerie history, where swimwear and undergarments have long shared a technical and aesthetic lineage. The campaign’s checked bikini and sleek trunks recall a time when such garments were constructed with the same foundational principles as corsetry and foundationwear, relying on structure and fit.
McGinley’s lens, which famously chronicled the uninhibited youth of early-2000s Manhattan, finds a parallel here in sun-drenched, watery freedom. The campaign’s cheeky nod to Colin Firth’s iconic wet shirt scene from the 1995 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is particularly telling. That moment, a pinnacle of restrained sensuality, hinges on the revelation of linen undergarments—a concept Burberry now plays with in broad daylight. The house itself, founded in 1856 as an outfitter for the outdoors, has a history of translating utilitarian fabrics like gabardine into protective yet stylish layers, a tradition echoed in this collection’s raffia bags and cotton voile.
This campaign underscores how swimwear, often a designer’s most revealing category, continues to draw from the archives of intimate apparel. The focus on the body in motion, the celebration of bare skin, and the precise cut of a bikini all stem from a century of innovation in fit and form that began not on the diving board, but in the atelier.
Originally reported by WWD