Burberry links with V&A on Fashion Gallery revamp, will become The Burberry Gallery

Burberry is continuing its cultural links and on Monday announced that it’s supporting the transformation of the Fashion Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington as part of a multi-year partnership.

Its deal with the London-based arts and culture institution unites “two icons of British culture with a shared legacy of heritage, innovation and creativity,” we’re told and will see the gallery redeveloped and exclusively renamed The Burberry Gallery on reopening in spring 2027.

The gallery closes in May ahead of its renovation into “a spectacular and participatory space that will inspire visitors and enable them to experience the V&A’s fashion collection in innovative and exciting ways”. 

The 2027 opening of The Burberry Gallery will also be complemented by a “wide-ranging activity programme on-site, offline and online, offering a world-class learning experience and greater access to fashion education for all”.

Burberry CEO Joshua Schulman said the partnership “marks a milestone moment for British arts and culture”.

The Fashion Gallery at the V&A is a major attraction and has hosted a number of major exhibitions, most recently ‘Naomi: In Fashion’.

But despite being one of the museum’s most visited and largest dedicated permanent gallery spaces, it was last structurally redeveloped as far back as 1962.

The partners said that on reopening, The Burberry Gallery will “continue to display a world-class fashion collection spanning five centuries and designs from a multitude of both brands and individuals”.

As mentioned, it’s a continuation of the luxury label’s long-standing legacy of supporting arts and culture at home and abroad, including it previously partnering with the British Pavilion for La Biennale di Venezia and the Royal Academy for the Thomas Burberry Prize. The cultural links also feed through to its runway shows with the Winter 2025 collection having been shown at Tate Britain and the Summer 2025 one at the National Theatre, both in London.

The museum and the brand were founded in the same decade in the 19th century and V&A director Tristram Hunt said they’ve “been pillars of British fashion. Global in our reach, whilst champions of UK art and design, we share a commitment to ensuring our proud heritage inspires the next generation of creatives. This partnership allows us to share the V&A’s incredible collections in new and accessible ways and, with Burberry, support education and craftsmanship across the country”.

So what happens for anyone wanting to view the V&A fashion pieces between now and 2027? The gallery shuts on 4 May and before it reopens, access to the V&A’s fashion collection continues to be available at V&A East Storehouse, opening 31 May, and online at vam.ac.uk.