Burberry — Repositioned and Reclaimed


In the late 90s, luxury fashion brand Burberry Ltd. was the jewel of every fashionista and style critic in cultural and socialite hubs around the world. However, in the wake of their success came many mistakes and the loss of a rich heritage and culture.

Franco Buhay
Jul 24, 2017 · 5 min read
A Women’s “Heritage” Patterned Scarf

For fashion brands, association is everything. Brands such as Nike have profited greatly being positioned as an athletic brand and has enjoyed the benefits of being permanently associated with the likes of sports legends Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Names like these have allowed themselves to price their shoes and elevate it as not only a desirable and trendy brand, but a classic brand as well. That Nike pioneered the basketball shoe and countless others is what makes it the brand of preference not only to the kid next door, but to celebrities and athletes, both professional and of the backyard sort alike. However, while Nike has stood for years as the shining example of how utilizing a rich heritage and carefully choosing cultural associations can benefit business in the long run, other brands lost sight of the importance of these things.

Enter Burberry. Burberry brand probably has one of the richest histories that anyone can hope for. Its heritage alone is the stuff of marketers wet dreams. Founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry at the age of 21, it brought to the market a fabric known as cotton gabardine. Invented by Burberry himself, it had a high thread count and a peculiar weave, which made it not only smooth and sturdy, but breathable and water proof as well. These qualities revolutionized rain gear, which at that point had been relatively heavy and unbreathable making them hot and uncomfortable. With its origins in outer wear, Burberry positioned his brand as high-quality and high-end outdoor wear available only to the gentry in the countryside. As he had invented and patented gabardine as a fabric, it placed him in the unique position of selling outdoor wear that was not only unique in terms of its target demographic, but unprecedented in quality and construction.

It was this exceptional quality that attracted the British military to use Burberry’s “Tielocken” coat design to dress their troops in the battle field. Patented by Burberry in 1912, the Tielocken was aptly re-coined as the trench coat during World War I as British officers were often seen wearing the coat in the trenches that defined much of the combat in the war. This single contract and patent established Burberry’s trench coat as the original trench, and enriched its heritage by giving the design that it would be known for roots in the first world war as a symbol of the allies. The fact that it was only worn by officers also solidified its position as being a cut above the rest. Being a military garment, it was also functional as it was iconic featuring D-rings from which items such as pistols and grenades were hung. The epaulets on the coat itself displayed rank and status within the military.

The brand continued to establish a base for itself as a cultural and societal icon after the war when it became the clothing of choice for Arctic explorers. In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton chose Burberry as his outfitter of choice and wore his apparel during all three of his polar expeditions. Because exploration was a rich man’s exploit, this not only original and practical test of the resilience of gabardine provided Burberry with both an audience and clientele within the upper class.

Fast-forward to the late twentieth-century.

Burberry overhauled its image in the early two-thousands by hiring model Kate Moss as its face. This positioned Burberry in the minds of younger consumers and socialites and provided for it an image of sex appeal. This gave Burberry a much needed face-lift in the new century and allowed for it to be marketed abroad. Because much of its demand was coming from overseas, it made the decision to license many of its goods, the foremost of these being its iconic check pattern. Licensing and publicity aside, it also made the radical decision to hire Gucci designer Christopher Bailey to head its fashion-forward Prorsum line.

While these decisions seemed sound at the time, especially in the wake of its success abroad with the new and quickly rising Chinese market, the brand’s image suffered massive losses. Due to the nature of its celebrity promotions, it quickly became an item sought out by young, but classless socialites looking to emulate Kate Moss. As a result, it quickly found its way onto the cover of tabloids cladding less-reputable stars and their children making the brand seem tacky. Its licensing, while a seemingly good idea from a corporate standpoint, had made the check a symbol that was consubstantial with the brand itself. Consequently, this spawned an influx of cheap knock-offs from China. The pattern and cut had been made easy to emulate as several items were entirely covered in the check design courtesy of Christopher Bailey making any item of clothing sporting Burberry-checks essentially identical to the real deal. These knock-offs and their lower price tag, allowed the now fashion-conscious youth and hooligans from London’s inner-city to wear what was once only available to society’s upper echelon. Hence the brand became associated with chav culture. In proper 90s-2000s fashion, Burberry found itself caught in the exuberant economic explosion that defined the period, and at a loss having lost sight of what was once a rich and impeccable heritage.

It wasn’t until 2008 when Angela Ahrendts took over the brand that Burberry began to recover from its loss of identity, however they went about it in a peculiar way. Instead of returning directly to their roots as a posh and exclusive brand, Burberry embraced its younger audience and repositioned itself as a young and aspiring brand. Utilizing social media and the now booming internet, Bailey redeemed himself by becoming one of the first haute-couture fashion houses to create a website. The Burberry digital space is now consistently ranked as one of the best sites in terms of Digital IQ.

While Burberry didn’t immediately return to its roots as an aristocratic brand, it did however reference and repackage them to better suit its new demographic. By shooting young models in the British countryside, aka the paradigm of classic English wealth, it successfully references its heritage lending to the image of sophistication that came with the brands original clientele. Burberry also carefully selected and signed British icons allowing it to celebrate and lock its position as a staple of higher English society.

While it did take some time for it to recover its image, the repositioning that Burberry underwent undoubtedly saved the brand and turned it into what it is today: a multimillion-dollar brand with a brilliantly curated heritage, clientele and face that is now publically traded and highly-sought out by consumers of all ages.

Franco Buhay

Written by

OSU ’18 | BS Mathematics | BS Economics | Economist | Traveller

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