Burberry Transforms Celebrity Guests Into ‘Hosts’ for Spring Show

LONDON — Goodbye front-row guest, hello front-row host.

Burberry has tapped Erykah Badu, Rosalía, Steve Lacy and Bella Hadid to “host” its livestreamed spring 2021 show on Thursday from their own digital devices. The show will take place in the British outdoors, and there will be no guests.

As reported, the show will be livestreamed on the LFW and Burberry digital channels.

The four hosts will begin with a “pre-show conversation” from 12:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, using Twitch’s Squad Stream functionality.

As soon as the show begins, the hosts will disappear and be replaced by screens showing the Burberry presentation from different angles. Viewers can enlarge or shrink the screens depending on what they want to see.

Guests will also be able to discuss the show through Twitch’s chat function, in what is meant to be an inclusive experience. Twitch began as an online gaming company and now features content that spans a broad spectrum, including music and art.

Burberry’s designer Riccardo Tisci has also invited an artist to collaborate, teaming with Anne Imhof, the German performance artist and painter.

Tisci and Imhof plan to bring together fashion and art for a project during the show that examines “tensions” at the intersections of the natural and the man-made — the real and the unreal, according to Burberry.

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