Burberry In Los Angeles: Son Heung-Min, Bright, And The Enduring Power Of British Outerwear

[..] There were days in the sun

That have stayed forever young

Nights when passion was invincible

We thought love would never die

There were moments in that lifetime

That my heart still replays

There were minutes, there were hours, there were days

There are moments I still love you, that same way

When I remember L.A

—I Remember L.A

Céline Dion 

Colours Of My Love (1993]

The rain over Sunset Boulevard had a way of turning the city lights into a blurred canvas of gold and crimson.

Son Heung-Min stood near the edge of the Griffith Observatory overlook, the cool Pacific breeze catching the hem of his dark Burberry trench coat. Beyond him, Los Angeles unfurled in a glittering panorama, its endless avenues and distant coastline bearing witness to a city built on ambition, reinvention and the intoxicating promise of tomorrow. 

Yet, against this restless landscape, the South Korean footballer appeared entirely unhurried. His coat, sharply cut and quietly commanding, seemed to belong to a different understanding of time.

On the football pitch, Son is a study in acceleration: instinct, precision and the exhilarating pursuit of an opening that might last no longer than a heartbeat. Here, above the city, the rhythm changes. The wind moves. The lights shimmer. And the world, for a moment, seems willing to wait.

There is something quietly cinematic about the image. Perhaps it is the contrast between the immensity of Los Angeles and the assured simplicity of a well-made coat. 

Perhaps it is the suggestion that, amid a culture perpetually chasing its next reinvention, certain things need never lose their relevance. A fine trench coat, after all, does not ask for the world’s attention. It earns it.

This imagined encounter provides a fitting introduction to Burberry’s latest outerwear campaign, which places Son alongside brand ambassador Bright, the Thai actor, singer and model, in a portrait of Los Angeles shaped by two distinct personalities, the changing light and the spontaneous poetry of everyday life.

In the campaign film, the city becomes more than a backdrop; it is a character in its own right. Son steps into the early morning with his dog, wearing a quilted nylon jacket as Los Angeles gradually emerges from its nocturnal slumber. 

There is an appealing restraint to this image of the footballer away from the roar of the stadium: a man comfortable in his own company, moving through the world without the need to announce himself.

Bright, meanwhile, takes to the road in a car coat distinguished by its House Check collar. California’s expansive vistas sweep past as the journey unfolds, lending his appearance a more cinematic, free-spirited quality. 

Their paths eventually cross in a fleeting moment of connection, a simple narrative gesture that captures the unexpected encounters through which a city reveals its personality.

The portraits extend this duality. Bright wears a navy wool pea coat and a corduroy Dalewood overshirt, exploring the relationship between traditional tailoring and relaxed contemporary dressing. Son’s mid-length Hastings trench coat, paired with check-flocked straight jeans, delivers a more assertive silhouette. 

Both men complete their ensembles with a reversible check cashmere scarf, a reminder that accessories need not shout to make their presence felt.

What distinguishes the styling is its understanding of masculinity as something with room to breathe. Structure need not mean stiffness; elegance need not demand formality. 

These are clothes designed to move between the morning walk, the open road and the spontaneous business of living. Their appeal lies not in dressing the wearer as somebody else, but in giving his existing character a sharper definition.

To understand why Burberry’s outerwear carries such cultural weight, one must travel back to 1856, when Thomas Burberry established his business in Basingstoke, Hampshire. His original ambition was remarkably practical: to create clothing capable of protecting people against Britain’s notoriously unpredictable weather.

In 1879, he invented gabardine, a tightly woven fabric that offered weather resistance without the cumbersome weight associated with earlier waterproof materials. Patented in 1888, it transformed the possibilities of outerwear. 

In 1912, Burberry patented the Tielocken coat, a precursor to the trench, before military requirements during the First World War helped establish the trench coat’s distinctive form and functional details. 

Burberry had begun turning necessity into an enduring design language.

The trench’s epaulettes, storm shield and belt were born from purpose, not decoration. Its subsequent journey into civilian wardrobes, cinema and popular culture transformed it into one of fashion’s most recognisable garments. 

The check lining, the collar, the unmistakable silhouette: each became part of a visual vocabulary that could communicate British identity without requiring a word.

Burberry’s evolution has nevertheless demanded more than reverence for its archives. Under successive creative leaders, the house has negotiated the delicate balance between preserving its English foundations and responding to changing cultural appetites. 

From the reinvention of its image in the late twentieth century to the contemporary reinterpretations of its signature codes, Burberry has repeatedly demonstrated that heritage is most compelling when it remains alive.

Today, Chief Creative Officer Daniel Lee brings his own perspective to that responsibility. Appointed in 2022, the Bradford-born designer has placed renewed emphasis on British identity, craftsmanship and the house’s defining outerwear. 

His approach is not simply to reproduce the past, but to discover fresh possibilities within it.

Here lies the strongest argument for investing in a Burberry coat: its value extends beyond the immediate gratification of wearing something new.

Fashion operates at an extraordinary speed. Algorithms elevate a silhouette, social media accelerates its popularity, and before long, yesterday’s must-have purchase can become tomorrow’s wardrobe afterthought. Burberry’s finest outerwear offers a different proposition. Its foundational designs are not dependent on a particular season’s approval to remain relevant.

Consider the trench coat. Its essential appeal has survived changing generations, shifting tastes and the transformation of everyday life across two world wars, economic upheaval and successive cultural revolutions. Its longevity is not proof that every coat will last indefinitely, nor does a prestigious label automatically guarantee superior performance. 

Fabric, construction, care and frequency of wear all matter. Yet Burberry’s enduring design codes and continued investment in material innovation provide a substantive basis for its appeal.

For the discerning buyer, the calculation is therefore different from the pursuit of novelty. A well-chosen coat can be worn repeatedly, styled in countless ways and passed through changing wardrobes without surrendering its relevance. The initial expenditure becomes easier to contextualise when the garment earns its place year after year.

That is not merely an argument for luxury. It is an argument for discernment.

Burberry’s Los Angeles campaign understands this instinctively. Son Heung-Min and Bright inhabit different rhythms of the same city, yet their wardrobes share a common foundation: considered outerwear that accommodates individuality rather than dictating it. The clothes do not compete with their personalities. They amplify them.

And perhaps that is the real triumph of the trench coat. It carries the memory of the British weather, the ingenuity of its inventor and the accumulated imagination of generations, yet it remains entirely at home beneath the Californian sun.

Trends will continue to rise and fall. The digital world will find new obsessions, and the fashion cycle will keep turning. But a beautifully considered Burberry coat has another advantage: it does not need to be rediscovered every season.

It simply waits in the wardrobe, ready for the next journey.

And when the moment arrives, it is still unmistakably itself.

Burberry Outerwear collection is available now in all Burberry boutiques worldwide and online. 

*Photos courtesy of Burberry.