Burberry Honors Queen Elizabeth II Centenary with Royal Capsule Collection

Burberry launched a four-piece capsule collection in collaboration with the Royal Collection Trust this week, marking what would have been Queen Elizabeth II's 100th birthday on April 21. Available from March 12 at Burberry.com and selected stores worldwide, the collection draws on the late Queen's countryside wardrobe and a newly created holly-green colorway of the Burberry House Check, itself inspired by the Old Stewart Tartan she was known to wear.

The centrepiece is a belted car coat produced at Burberry's factory in Castleford, Yorkshire. Made from lightweight cotton gabardine woven with contrasting yarns for an iridescent finish, the coat is built from certified organic cotton and lined in organic silk printed with the new holly-green check. The color reads somewhere between racing green and deep forest, and the iridescent weave gives the gabardine a quiet luminosity that photographs can't quite capture.

The remaining three pieces carry that same check across different textures and scales. A Scottish-woven cashmere scarf features the pattern in full, while a silk twill scarf frames a hand-painted depiction of Balmoral Castle, the Royal Family's Highland home, with the green check running along its border. The fourth piece is the collection's most personal: a gold-plated corgi brooch, the dog dressed in an enamelled check coat and adorned with the Burberry Knight motif set on a freshwater pearl. The Mirror reports the brooch is priced at £395.

The capsule arrives just weeks ahead of "Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style," described by WWD as the largest exhibition ever of the late monarch's fashion. The show opens April 10 at The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, and runs until October 18. Three Burberry pieces from the archive will feature in the exhibition: a hooded riding cape from around 2010, an original invoice for a Burberry coat ordered in 1966, and a Burberry Check silk scarf from 2013. The exhibition is accompanied by the official centenary publication, "Queen Elizabeth II: Fashion and Style."

The collaboration carries genuine historical weight. Burberry has held a Royal Warrant since 1955, and the Queen returned to the brand consistently throughout her reign, particularly for outdoor pursuits. That lineage makes this capsule something more than a commemorative exercise: it is a brand reaching back into a relationship built over seven decades and finding it still legible in a belted coat and a familiar plaid.