With news of Romeo Beckham’s second Burberry campaign on the way, we thought we would bring you the story of the brand; or some of it, at least.
Its history is very interesting due to the fact that of all the fashion brands, perhaps the greatest turnaround in fortunes over the last few years happened at London-based Burberry. Originally a military brand, it was famous for its trench coat which was first designed with its famous tartan pattern by the company’s founder Thomas Burberry. Through the ages it has had many incarnations and associations and while some of those could be considered good associations, there has been a number of not so good ones.
For instance Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, was dressed fully in Burberry when he did so in 1911. Ernest Shackleton also was when he crossed Antarctica shortly after this.
In more recent years the brands positioning was a source of major concern to its owners and stakeholders. The 70’s saw Burberry become the uniform of English football hooligans, and the 90’s saw the “chav” culture embracing the label. This association saw the company lose prestige and position and was put down to the many licensing deals that were struck by then CEO Rose Marie Bravo. The iconic tartan pattern had lost its appeal and was worn more and more by those who historically couldn’t afford it. It had become too accessible.
Christopher Bailey (right) has changed how the public view Burberry
When Christopher Bailey joined as creative director in 2001 he immediately went about removing the tartan pattern from the majority of the products Burberry made. He slowly re-introduced it to about 10% of stock but only on the higher end, more expensive products thus re-establishing its previous lustre and making the brand accessible only to those who could afford a near £1,000 trench coat.
Bailey, with Angela Ahrendts as new CEO, sought to further re-position Burberry to a place of sophistication and aspiration by embracing social media and collaborating on high end campaigns with well-known models and musicians through magazine shoots in Vogue, Esquire, GQ and Harper’s Bazaar. One of the most high profile campaigns was last year’s AW13 shoot fronted by Romeo Beckham (see below.) His follow up ad this Christmas is bound to bring even more eyes to the brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87556Xu5nnU&feature=youtu.be
Video via Burberry.
The final frontier was the creation of Burberrys digital division as a means to grow the brands online imprint further through experimenting and diverging into wearable technology. A think tank set up by the now CEO and creative director, Christopher Bailey (former CEO Angela Ahrendts has upped sticks to Apple) has set up an in house innovation group called the What If Group to assess how the company might grow into the future with special focus being brought to the relationship between fashion and tech.
Only yesterday financial reports for the company state that first half sales through September show retail revenues of 748 million pounds, a rise of 8%, with new technological initiatives like click and collect, which allow shoppers to order online and pick up in store, thought to be a driver in this rise.
That’s quite some turnaround considering the attitudes towards Burberry in the early ’00s.
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