Burberry Got Too Fancy. This American Is Taking It Back To Its British Roots.

Soon after taking over as Burberry's chief executive last summer, Joshua Schulman popped into the company's Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan. The shop floor was cavernous, minimalist and showcased select $3,000 handbags.

What he didn't see were any $500 umbrellas—the type of higher-volume accessory that, along with trench coats, made Burberry an icon of functional, aspirational luxury for well over a century. As an American who had long admired the British brand, Schulman was puzzled.

"I'm like, why don't we have hats or umbrellas on the floor?" he recalled. A store employee told him that went against the company's visual guidelines, which called for sparse setups and no mannequins, another thing that struck Schulman as odd given that Burberry sells a full wardrobe. "I said, 'Well, why don't we try?'"

Employees quickly retrieved some from the stockroom and propped them up prominently. As luck would have it, a rainstorm soon blew through, and several shoppers bought umbrellas with Burberry's signature check pattern within the hour.

One year in as Burberry CEO, Schulman is taking a back-to-basics approach to reviving the cachet of a company that once helped define British culture around the world. He is unwinding some of the brand's overly ambitious detours and refocusing on what built Burberry's name: classic British style and clothing designed to withstand the elements. A new ad campaign proclaims "It's Always Burberry Weather" and features Olivia Colman, who played Queen Elizabeth II on "The Crown," in a quilted jacket and Liam Gallagher of Oasis in a parka ahead of the '90s British rock band's reunion tour.

"Some of this is about slicing and dicing the numbers and looking at deep analysis," says the 53-year-old in an interview in his office at Burberry's London headquarters near the Thames. "And some of it is just leaning into the assets that we have already and celebrating who we are."

Since its founding in 1856 and Thomas Burberry's invention of weatherproofed gabardine fabric designed to withstand the British climate, Burberry has outfitted polar explorers, soldiers and royalty. A young Princess Diana was frequently photographed in her Burberry trench, establishing the coat as a symbol of understated aristocratic style. By the late 1980s, it was becoming the uniform of London's club kids and fashion outsiders. The shift diluted its luxury image; it was too everywhere. In the 2000s, the brand mounted a comeback, running ads with the likes of Kate Moss and aristocratic model Stella Tennant that blended heritage with edge.

Source: See here