Barbour to take over the Saatchi Gallery for London Fashion Week

Heritage British brand Barbour is gearing to take over the ground floor of the Saatchi Gallery at the Duke of York's HQ on London’s King's Road during London Fashion Week.

It’s for an immersive exhibition under the title of ‘Tartan Reimagined: The Barbour Way’, with the aim to celebrate the brand’s Scottish heritage, craft and evolving approach to tartan across a series of conceptual galleries.

Visitors will be able to explore Barbour’s tartan heritage, AW26 collection and the future of the brand, including winning designs from the Barbour x British Fashion Council ‘Tartan Reimagined’ competition.

The exhibition, which will open on the afternoon of 17 September with an exclusive press event and then run across 18 and 19 September as part of the official BFC London Fashion Week schedule, will also feature Barbour Re-Loved creations and a live working factory installation, bringing the craft behind the brand to the heart of the Saatchi Gallery.

The event centres around the continuation of the tartan story first told at London Fashion Week in AW25, celebrating Barbour’s family sett and Scottish heritage.

It’s inspired by John Barbour, who travelled from Kirkcudbrightshire, South West Scotland to South Shields in the North East of England, where he opened the first Barbour store in South Shields Marketplace in 1894. The Barbour HQ is still in South Shields to this day.

The distinctive Barbour tartan sett, which is the sequence and arrangement of coloured threads woven through crossing points, is a founding design code of Scotland and remains central to the Barbour brand today.

Each season, Barbour continues to explore new interpretations of its tartan heritage through evolving colour palettes and seasonal designs, while remaining true to the original sett and family roots it presents.

The exhibition will finish by celebrating the craft and initiatives that makes Barbour so unique with a display of Re-Loved creations, including collaborations with Gucci, Erdem and Paul Smith.

In March 2026, Barbour and Paul Smith unveiled their second collaboration collection for SS26, with an accompanying campaign which celebrated British seaside culture and traditions.

Blending Barbour’s maritime heritage and Paul Smith’s “modern eccentricity”, the 46-piece men’s and women’s collection built on the 23-piece first collaboration for AW25 which centred around a theme of British country fairs - under the banner of ‘Paul Smith loves Barbour’.

Guests who visit the ‘Tartan Reimagined: The Barbour Way’ exhibition will have the opportunity to purchase limited-edition event Barbour pin badges.