Burberry must end emphasis on shock factor and focus on being loved again

Burberry has blessings that other brands would kill for. Everyone knows what a Burberry trenchcoat is, and pretty much everyone would be thrilled to have one. Burberry is a household name at a time when shoppers buying luxuries prize a prestige brand more than anything else. It is one of the elite labels that have meaning in the world of power and status, not only fashion.

In the trenchcoat – a perennial wardrobe classic – it owns prized real estate on the Monopoly board of luxury. (Consider how much mileage Gucci makes out of owning the loafer.) It has 168 years of heritage, and a bone-deep authenticity as the outfitter of Scott and Shackleton. It makes coats that last a lifetime, which chimes with modern values of sustainability. It stands for Britishness and quality. Success should, surely, be an open goal.

Fashion is seldom that simple, however, and Burberry’s advantages are also its problems. It is a coat brand in a world where bags and shoes, not clothes, are cash cows. It is synonymous with Britishness, leaving it beached and disconnected from the continental powerhouses of Paris and Milan.

Burberry’s fashion glory days were under the designer Christopher Bailey, who over the course of almost two decades transformed it from a reliable but dull coat maker into a style powerhouse. Bailey grabbed British cultural references that spoke to a broad audience – the Beatles, Princess Margaret, David Hockney, Marianne Faithfull – to create a look that was aspirational but accessible, classy without being snobbish.

By packing his front rows with politicians and rappers, as well as actors and supermodels, he gave Burberry a context in culture. He popped the collar on the trenchcoat, streamlined it into a more flattering silhouette, and built out the colour palette from boring beige into soft neutrals.

Bailey’s successors, the Italian designer Riccardo Tisci and, since 2022, the Yorkshire-born Daniel Lee, have attempted to take Burberry in a different direction – cooler, haughtier, edgier. Fickle consumers had grown tired of the cosy Burberry world that Bailey had built, and Tisci, who had enjoyed stellar success as a pioneer of luxury streetwear at Givenchy, believed he could bring the same magic to British shores. But neither Tisci nor Lee have found a way to join the dots between avant garde catwalk looks and what consumers want from Burberry.

In recent seasons Burberry has taken the audience deliberately outside their comfort zone, with shows staged in huge tents in London parks with utilitarian stuffed bench seating and dark lighting. The vibe is one part explorers’ base camp, one part festival dance tent. The emphasis is on the shock – rather than the feelgood – factor.

Burberry needs to create clothes – and, crucially, bags and shoes – that make fashion fall in love with the brand again. That the shake-up announced on Monday brings in Joshua Schulman – an alumnus of Coach and Michael Kors, the home of friendly-looking, accessible-level designer bags – as chief executive speaks to a change of direction.

Lee is a highly talented designer, with an instinct for the zeitgeist that led to him transforming Bottega Veneta from a relatively obscure Milanese house into an Instagram sensation, before he took on Burberry. A trench with soft scallop edging, a rugged parka lined in a deep olive version of the Burberry check, a storm-collared leather jacket, are just three from a lineup of extremely desirable pieces in his most recent show.

But in aiming for cool, his Burberry sometimes ends up feeling chilly and sullen. Warm reviews mean nothing if the people aren’t buying it. In fashion, the customer is always right.