In a radical rethink of the fashion calendar, Burberry will combine its men’s and women’s shows together in two annual runway events, with ‘seasonless’ collections available to buy immediately after the shows. In an exclusive, in-depth conversation, Christopher Bailey explains the logic behind this game-changing move.
LONDON, United Kingdom — As discussions heat up around the ‘broken’ fashion system and brands seek new ways of presenting their collections to better align their runway shows — a powerful driver of consumer demand — with retail drops, BoF can reveal that British megabrand Burberry is completely shifting the way it produces, presents and sells its collections.
Starting this September, Burberry will combine the presentation of its men’s and women’s offerings, packaging them together as one unified collection to be shown twice a year at major runway events during London Fashion Week. (The brand will no longer stage two annual menswear shows at London Collections: Men, but will retain a presence at the event.)
While Burberry’s men’s and women’s collections have long followed the same creative theme — and recent seasons have seen female models appearing in the brand’s menswear shows and vice versa — the brand will, for the first time, be presenting its offering as one, holistic collection. Immediately after the shows, the full collection of men's and women’s looks will be available to buy both online and in-store, supported by digital and print advertising campaigns, which will launch as soon as the show ends.
The new collections will be “seasonless” and branded “February” and “September” rather than Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter, nomenclature conceived with an eye towards global consumers who live in non-Western markets with different climatic patterns.
The decision follows the company’s move to unify its Prorsum, London and Brit lines under a single brand umbrella, known simply as ‘Burberry.’ In October, hurt by weak sales in Asia, Burberry forecast declining profit for the second year in a row and announced plans to trim discretionary costs, like travel, by £20 million this financial year.
But most importantly, Burberry’s new strategy addresses a long-standing problem with the traditional fashion calendar, a legacy of a pre-Internet era in which fashion shows were conceived as closed industry events for press and wholesale buyers to preview collections months before clothing was available for purchase in stores. In recent years, the rise of digital media has put tremendous pressure on this model, as runway shows — now instantly shareable on the internet — have morphed into powerful consumer marketing events, leaving brands ill-equipped to convert buzz into sales for collections that have yet to be produced.
Burberry has been taking steps to close the gap between runway and retail for some time, sharing its shows online and allowing shoppers to buy select items straight from the runway. But fully aligning the brand’s runway and retail cycles is a major step forward — with significant implications for the company's production and supply chain, as well as its communications strategy — and marks what may be the beginning of a sea change in the fashion industry.
“The BFC executive board has been talking for some time about fashion shows better connecting to consumers and being a direct driver for retail sales," said Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council. "Burberry is a truly innovative brand and this strategic move shows brilliant leadership from Christopher Bailey and his team in driving this agenda forward. A number of British brands will move to a similar model over the next few seasons.”
In an exclusive, in-depth conversation, Burberry's chief executive and chief creative officer Christopher Bailey talks to BoF’s Imran Amed about the logic behind the brand’s new model.
Continue
LONDON, United Kingdom — As discussions heat up around the ‘broken’ fashion system and brands seek new ways of presenting their collections to better align their runway shows — a powerful driver of consumer demand — with retail drops, BoF can reveal that British megabrand Burberry is completely shifting the way it produces, presents and sells its collections.
Starting this September, Burberry will combine the presentation of its men’s and women’s offerings, packaging them together as one unified collection to be shown twice a year at major runway events during London Fashion Week. (The brand will no longer stage two annual menswear shows at London Collections: Men, but will retain a presence at the event.)
While Burberry’s men’s and women’s collections have long followed the same creative theme — and recent seasons have seen female models appearing in the brand’s menswear shows and vice versa — the brand will, for the first time, be presenting its offering as one, holistic collection. Immediately after the shows, the full collection of men's and women’s looks will be available to buy both online and in-store, supported by digital and print advertising campaigns, which will launch as soon as the show ends.
The new collections will be “seasonless” and branded “February” and “September” rather than Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter, nomenclature conceived with an eye towards global consumers who live in non-Western markets with different climatic patterns.
The decision follows the company’s move to unify its Prorsum, London and Brit lines under a single brand umbrella, known simply as ‘Burberry.’ In October, hurt by weak sales in Asia, Burberry forecast declining profit for the second year in a row and announced plans to trim discretionary costs, like travel, by £20 million this financial year.
But most importantly, Burberry’s new strategy addresses a long-standing problem with the traditional fashion calendar, a legacy of a pre-Internet era in which fashion shows were conceived as closed industry events for press and wholesale buyers to preview collections months before clothing was available for purchase in stores. In recent years, the rise of digital media has put tremendous pressure on this model, as runway shows — now instantly shareable on the internet — have morphed into powerful consumer marketing events, leaving brands ill-equipped to convert buzz into sales for collections that have yet to be produced.
Burberry has been taking steps to close the gap between runway and retail for some time, sharing its shows online and allowing shoppers to buy select items straight from the runway. But fully aligning the brand’s runway and retail cycles is a major step forward — with significant implications for the company's production and supply chain, as well as its communications strategy — and marks what may be the beginning of a sea change in the fashion industry.
“The BFC executive board has been talking for some time about fashion shows better connecting to consumers and being a direct driver for retail sales," said Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council. "Burberry is a truly innovative brand and this strategic move shows brilliant leadership from Christopher Bailey and his team in driving this agenda forward. A number of British brands will move to a similar model over the next few seasons.”
In an exclusive, in-depth conversation, Burberry's chief executive and chief creative officer Christopher Bailey talks to BoF’s Imran Amed about the logic behind the brand’s new model.
Continue
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