Burberry

Burberry was founded in 1856 as a clothing brand by Thomas Burberry in Basingstoke, England. It is best known for inventing gabardine, a waterproof and breathable fabric patented in 1879, and for the trench coat, the iconic 1914 military overcoat that made the brand a symbol of British style worldwide. The "Nova check" pattern, introduced as the trench coat's lining, became over the years the house's most recognizable signature.

Watchmaking was never a direct Burberry activity, but a licensed one. In 2001 the brand signed an agreement with the American Fossil Group, which from 2002 became the producer, distributor and merchandiser of the Burberry watch line, relying on the Swiss manufacturer Roventa-Henex for the technical component. This gave rise to the first collections, designed for a broad audience and positioned at price points accessible compared to high-end watchmaking.

In 2012 the agreement with Fossil was expanded with the declared goal of moving the offering toward a higher tier, with watches made entirely in Switzerland: this gave birth to the "The Britain" line, presented at Baselworld in 2013. The project, however, did not hold up for long against the difficult moment for the fashion-luxury sector: at the end of 2017 Burberry announced it would not renew the licensing agreement with Fossil Group, preferring to focus resources on the brand's core luxury categories. Since then Burberry no longer produces watches under its own name: the pieces from the collections described on this page are today found only on the secondhand and residual market.