• last year
It's a world-renowned luxury brand, distinctively British – but its image has fallen victim to its own popularity. CGTN’s Catherine Drew reports.

#burberry #fashion

Read more 👇

https://tinyurl.com/3zkha453

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00Textile apprentice Thomas Burberry opened his first shop in 1856 at just 21 years old.
00:07His invention of water-resistant gabardine revolutionized outerwear and gave us the trench coat,
00:13so named because it was worn by soldiers in World War I.
00:17Since that time, the company has gone on to become a worldwide luxury brand,
00:21trading on its sense of Britishness.
00:23But its image has also fallen victim to its own popularity.
00:28When you think about luxury, generally the consistent opportunity is exclusivity.
00:34And what we've seen with the Burberry brands now, particularly in the noughties and nineties,
00:40but certainly more recently as well,
00:42is when it dips into areas where it becomes almost of mass appeal,
00:48whilst it might impact sales very instantaneously,
00:52it then has a challenge for the legacy of the brand.
00:55Like many luxury brands, Burberry has endured stormy weather in recent times.
01:00In July, it reported a 22% year-on-year slide in first quarter sales.
01:05This prompted the company's second profit warning this year,
01:08a suspension of the dividend and an announcement of UK job cuts.
01:13Meanwhile, the share price has fallen around 50% across the year,
01:17prompting its exit from the FTSE 100 index in September.
01:22Perhaps in a bid to recapture the previous cool Britannia heyday of the late 1990s,
01:27Burberry has recruited well-known British celebrities,
01:30along with Chinese actor Zhang Jingyi as ambassadors.
01:34But some question the tactic.
01:36It's not going to make me buy a coat or a scarf.
01:40It's all well and good picking out icons,
01:42but what's the strategy behind it and how do you convert that into sales?
01:46Sales which are down across the world,
01:48including in China.
01:49This used to be a territory where perhaps brands could just almost rest on their laurels,
01:53particularly when I was trading 20 years ago there.
01:56You know, we could bring British heritage in, put a union jack on,
02:00and therefore, you know, hey, presto, we were delivering on our promise.
02:04But this is much more of a transient, opportunistic, social media-focused market
02:11where absolutely it's got to be relevant to the world.
02:16It's got to be relevant to young people and Burberry loyalists in China
02:23who aspire to the brand and wear their visions.
02:26Some analysts have suggested Burberry should close its profitable outlet stores,
02:30which serve as a disincentive for customers to pay full price.
02:34I think you'd need to look at how much surplus you're creating within your supply chain
02:38because clearly that's a problem if you've got that many outlet stores.
02:41The cost of living crisis has impacted the luxury sector as a whole,
02:45but Burberry has underperformed its peers.
02:48Now, many are looking to see if the new leadership will take the company back
02:52to its traditional heartland to regain its place as a global fashion powerhouse.
02:57Catherine Drew, CTTN, London.