Riccardo Tisci’s Spring 2021 Burberry Collection unleashed his Givenchy rebel mind, injecting a mega dose of myth and artistic emotion into high-tech clothes deeply anchored in nature.

Tisci sought to capture the menacing undercurrent of 2020 in his “love story between a mermaid and a shark, set against the ocean, then brought to land.” Lurking behind the spring 2021 show on display at an undisclosed show outside of London, was an undercurrent of the mental, emotional terror humans are facing around the world. Because this is not a terror movie, but real life, Tisci’s backdrop of nature as a place of solace, strength and sustainability is key to his message.

The collection also underscores the ongoing theme of modernism juxtaposed against the destruction of nature, with the fashion industry and our clothes being high on the list of real-life foes of nature.

When Riccardo Tisci arrived at Givenchy in 2005, he expressed a fascination with Gothic touches in the form of a sophisticated darkness. Those subtle leanings took form in Burberry’s spring show in which the designer collaborated with the performance artist Anne Imhof, who won the top prize at the 2017 Venice Biennale, while Eliza Douglas sang at the livestreamed event.

Fashion writer Alison S. Cohen wrote that the pervasive, dystopian sense that pervaded the Burberry show suggested that Tisci was “prepping his followers for life on a new Atlantis.”

In his own notes about the show and collection, Burberry writes: “The sea, always beautiful, sometimes savage, invariably romantic, inspires the clothing. It reflects a multifaceted view of Britain – simultaneously rural and urban, spanning earth and ocean, always expressing freedom.”

We are losing that freedom in COVID quarantine, no longer free to move about or even go to work in old ways. Demanding the freedom to not wear a mask in public is now a political and polarizing act.

Simultaneously, Tisci titled the show ‘In Bloom’ — hardly a dystopian concept.

“I was thinking about regeneration, about dynamic youth, about nature constantly recreating itself, always growing and evolving, always alive,” Tisci’s show notes continued. “Water is a symbol of that also—of newness, freshness and cleansing. And through water, life grows—water is what allows nature to bloom. Everything is circular.”

In the show notes, Burberry is careful to address its own conservation and sustainability goals. Citing their contribution to Groundwork South, Burberry addressed the brand’s challenges and goals in amping up their own efforts to sustain nature. The brand affirmed its own goal to be carbon neutral in its operational energy use by 2022 and to obtain 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources in the same time frame.

In February 2020, Burberry announced the launch of a Regeneration Fund to support a portfolio of verified carbon offsetting and carbon insetting projects to directly tackle the environmental impact of Burberry’s operations.

Tisci has always been clear about the influential roles of women in his life. The designer is the last child born in his family — the only boy with eight sisters and a father who died when he was a child.

It seems impossible that the designer’s quarantine time spent gardening and cooking with his 92-year-old mother in their family home near Lake Como wasn’t instrumental in the genesis of the new collection.

“It’s the first time in 21 years that we spent three months together. It was amazing,” he said on a video call the morning of the show. Tisci said lockdown was an ambivalent experience in his video conference before the show. Vogue described his comments this way:

From a humble background, he spent his career creating a different life for himself. The rootsy surroundings of his quarantine made him reconnect with his childhood and the innocent mindset with which he pursued those dreams. “You open the drawer of your past and see how far you’ve gone as a person, how much you’ve done for yourself, and for others. Your dreams have come true.”