Some brand partnerships are built to last a single season. Barbour and Aardman seem to have found one that can run every Christmas. After Shaun the Sheep in 2023 and 2024 and Wallace and Gromit last year, the British outdoor clothing brand brings the inventor and his dog back for “Warm Wishes,” a 90-second stop-motion film directed by Steve Harding-Hill, Aardman’s creative director of short form and commercials. It was released on November 5, 2026, and is on Barbour’s official YouTube channel.
Christmas walkies, Wallace style
The setup is pure Wallace. The turkey is in the oven, the presents are open, and Gromit has a new Barbour Sylkoil wax dog coat. That calls for a walk. Wallace, of course, would rather not walk at all. “May I introduce the Walk-o-matic?” he announces, unveiling a steam-powered armchair on mechanical legs, fitted with Barbour wellies, a tartan funnel and a standard lamp for good measure. It promises all the pleasures of a country stroll without any of the effort.
What follows is a short, tidy chain of gags. The machine stomps past a family out on their own festive walk, clears a cattle grid (“Cattle do nicely!”), and then, as Wallace boasts about how much he loves the countryside, it breaks down and throws him into a snowdrift. Gromit digs him out, hands over his own present, a Barbour half-zip knitted jumper wrapped in tartan, and Wallace is “warmed right through.” Shaun the Sheep and the flock wander in for a cameo before the end card, where the pair head home at sunset: “Still, it’s good to stretch your legs once in a while, eh lad?”
The craft is the whole point
Visually, this is Aardman at full strength. The Walk-o-matic is a lovely piece of model-making, all brass gauges, red paint and ridiculous rigging, and the way its welly-shod feet pick across the cattle grid is the best shot in the film. The light does real work too: cold blue-grey for the snowdrift, a warm orange sunset for the walk home, so the change of temperature in the story is also a change of colour. Gromit carries his scenes, as always, with nothing but his brow and his ears. His thumbs-up after the rescue gets a bigger laugh than any line of dialogue.
The product placement is also handled with care. The dog coat and the jumper are not just shown, they are the two gifts the plot turns on: one gets the walk started, the other ends it. Barbour’s tartan is everywhere, from the wrapping paper to the funnel of the machine, but it reads as set dressing rather than a logo slapped on a frame. For a heritage brand that sells warmth, a story about getting cold and being warmed up by a gift is a neat fit.
Where it runs thin
The problem is that 90 seconds is not much room for a Wallace and Gromit story, and “Warm Wishes” feels more like a sketch than a film. The invention-goes-wrong formula is the heart of the franchise, but here the machine is introduced, walks for a few seconds and breaks down with very little build. There is no real escalation, and the snowdrift payoff arrives just as the idea starts to get going. Fans will also notice that a machine that does the walking for you is close to the territory of the Techno Trousers from “The Wrong Trousers,” and this version does far less with it.
The Shaun the Sheep cameo is nice fan service, but it also shows how much of the film runs on goodwill for characters people already love. After four Christmases with Aardman, Barbour risks the partnership becoming a tradition people expect rather than an idea that surprises them. The family the Walk-o-matic passes on the path, for example, is set up and then never used again, which adds to the sense of a bigger idea trimmed down to fit the slot.
The verdict
“Warm Wishes” is charming, beautifully made and well matched to the brand, and in a season full of three-minute epics it is refreshing to see a Christmas ad that simply wants to make you smile. But the story is slight, the main gag never builds, and the film leans hard on the warmth that Wallace, Gromit and Shaun bring with them. A pleasant, polished stocking filler rather than one of the year’s big presents.
Credits: Client: Barbour (Global Marketing Director: Jamie McCall). Production company: Aardman. Director and creative director: Steve Harding-Hill. Wallace and Gromit created by Nick Park. Film: 90 seconds, stop-motion. Credits per Barbour, Aardman, LBB and shots.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
