Simone Ashley In A Burberry Check Bikini Is The Only Summer Moodboard You Need

While we aren’t always necessarily excited for summer here in the UAE and GCC, given the sweltering heat, the impending European summer is a whole different story.

And while the GRAZIA team weren’t necessarily thinking about summer today, Burberry then dropped its High Summer 2026 campaign, and now it’s all we can think about.

Shot at a sun-drenched lido (an open-air swimming pool) by photographer Ryan McGinley, the film and images capture that perfect, fleeting feeling of a long British summer afternoon.

Leading the campaign is Simone Ashley, starring alongside Tom Blyth and models Alva Claire, Babacar N’Doye and Sacha Quenby.

The Bridgerton star takes centre stage, draped in Burberry’s iconic check bikini that is giving our ultimate summer moodboard.

The collection itself is just as dreamy. Cotton voile separates, ruffled cover-up dresses, deckchair-stripe weaves and the most covetable Margate raffia bag we’ve ever seen. In typical British and European summer fashion, lightweight hooded jackets are a part of the collection for cooler evenings.

Regardless, it’s poolside dressing done with that particular Burberry precision that makes everything feel effortless without ever actually being effortless.

As Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer, Daniel Lee describes, he wanted to capture “a warm summer’s day spent in and around the water with friends” – and he has absolutely done that.

Now, if someone could just fast-forward to July in London, that would be great.