Rubuen Bilan-Carroll appears in the campaign for Burberry new capsule with Sir Quentin Blake, bringing the British illustrator’s drawings into a fashion setting. The collaboration places Blake’s hand-drawn characters, feather motifs, and nature-led imagery across Burberry pieces, giving the collection a direct link to one of Britain’s most familiar visual voices.
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Daniel Lee, Burberry Chief Creative Officer, describes the project through Blake’s particular sense of image-making. “Sir Quentin Blake’s illustrations capture a sense of childhood magic. They have a very British style, and we wanted to bring his amazing creations into the world of Burberry,” Lee said.
Blake has shaped British illustration and children’s publishing for almost seventy years. His drawings hold a clear sense of character and narrative, with a loose, expressive line that has become instantly recognizable across generations. His long career includes collaborations with many writers, most famously Roald Dahl. He served as the first British Children’s Laureate from 1999 to 2001, received a CBE in 2005, gained a knighthood for services to illustration in 2013, and received a Companion of Honour appointment from Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
For Burberry, Blake’s work enters the collection through two main visual directions. The first comes from feather prints inspired by his original 1971 pen-and-ink illustration for an English-language version of The Birds by Aristophanes. The second comes from a recent group of previously unreleased drawings, with playful figures interacting with nature.
The trench coats carry some of the clearest design work in the capsule. Burberry uses shower-resistant tropical gabardine, the lightest of its key fabrics, for pieces that reinterpret Blake’s feather artwork through construction, lining, and embroidery. The narrow Foxfield trench carries an embroidered design with a tactile finish, while each trench includes Burberry’s Knight label inside, finished with Blake’s signature.
Printed silk gives the collection another major surface for Blake’s drawings. Burberry uses it for panels on a knitted T-shirt and scarves. The artwork also appears on cotton jersey T-shirts and sweaters, giving the capsule a more casual side. Accessories continue the same graphic approach. Burberry adds capsule motifs to cotton twill baseball caps through embroidery.
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The collaboration also connects to the upcoming Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, which opens on June 5, 2026 as the UK’s first and only permanent space dedicated to illustration. Burberry has contributed funding for staff and volunteer training, illustrator-led workshops, inclusive community programming, and monthly LGBTQI+ family sessions launching in July.
