Burberry Debuts Star-studded Chinese New Year Campaign, Partners With de Gournay for Holiday Display

STAR POWER: British luxury brand Burberry is betting on Chinese star power to drive engagement and performance for the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday period.

The brand on Tuesday unveiled the star-studded campaign, featuring brand ambassadors Chen Kun, Tang Wei, Wu Lei and Zhang Jingyi for the Burberry Year of the Horse collection, which fittingly plays with its house code, a knight in Burberry armour galloping on a horse.

The original motif was the winning entry of a public competition to design a logo for the house back in 1901. The brand’s chief creative officer Daniel Lee revived the motif and gave it a modern look in 2023.

The Chinese New Year range plays with the brand’s signature Equestrian Knight Design in the forms of watercolor and ink sketch, metallic embroidery, cross-stitch and appliquéd badges, and offers check wardrobe staples in beige, navy and red, a symbol of auspiciousness and prosperity in Chinese culture.

For a subtle nod to the cultural link between China and the U.K., Burberry partnered with British hand-painted wallpaper brand de Gournay on window designs throughout stores in China and the Asia-Pacific for the holiday period.

The collaboration celebrates the craft and texture of Xuan paper, the traditional paper used for Chinese calligraphy and painting, through the lens of artist Liao Wenjun.

“Working with our artists in China, we reinterpreted Burberry’s original Equestrian Knight Design, depicting horses in motion, using an inky painting style inspired by energetic calligraphic brushstrokes. The multi-layered panels will be installed in store as draped free-hanging panels,” said Jemma Cave, creative director at de Gournay.