Click to Return to the Resources Home Page
 
 

Search All Wally's Sites Using Keywords

Resources for
This Postcard

Postcards from the Digital Age
A Woman from the Bronx,
a "No-Name" Designer and
How They Revitalized a
Legendary British Brand

When Rose Marie Bravo took over Burberry, the once-legendary British brand had slumped into mediocrity. Year after year it turned out the same lines, staggering along, living on a reputation earned decades before.

Thomas Burberry built a world-famous company by starting from the simple observation that shepherds and farmers wore linen smocks that kept them cool in summer and warm in winter. In 1879 he developed a waterproof version of the smock. He called his cotton cloth Gabardine.

By 1891 he was in London, making clothes and other items out of Gabardine. Many celebrities of his day loved his clothes and wore them.

Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen wore Burberry overalls. He left a Burberry tent at the South Pole to prove to any explorers who came later that he had been there first.

During World War I, Burberry designed a raincoat that was standard issue for British Army officers. They christened it, "the trench coat." The Burberry check was patented in 1924 and put in the lining of all trench coats, including the one Humphrey Bogart wore in Casablanca.

But those days of being a fashion leader and receiving celebrity endorsement were long gone by 1997, when Burberry hired Rose Marie Bravo away from her million-dollar job at Saks. At the time she was a rising star of fashion retail.

She was born in the Bronx, the daughter of a hairdresser. She graduated from the elite Bronx High School of Science and Fordham University. Then she worked for Abraham and Strauss and Macy's.

Bravo has said that she was lucky to come up in cosmetics because there were several successful women to use as role models. They included Estee Lauder, Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, and Carol Phillips.

She learned from them all, but her biggest break came from Edward Finkelstein. He was chairman of Macy's when he gave the then 37-year-old Bravo the opportunity to run I. Magnin.

From I. Magnin she moved on to Saks. In the five years she was there she brought new energy and fashion to the selling floor there while improving operating results. That's why Burberry wanted her.

Maybe it's more accurate to say they needed her, or someone like her. When Bravo arrived at Burberry's shabby East End headquarters, she found a lot that needed fixing. In fact the only thing Burberry really had going for it were its name and famous check.

She set to work cleaning up the operational mess. She improved logistics and distribution. Financial controls were put in place. Licensing agreements were re-worked.

And she started looking and asking around for good ideas. She noticed, for example, that the sales in Spain were very good.

This was puzzling because, in spite of the famous rhyme, it really doesn't rain much in Spain. Bravo figured that the things she learned in Spain could be used to sell raincoats in places like Florida and Southern California.

She worked at reaching out to new markets while maintaining the old ones. When model Kate Moss posed in a Burberry check bikini, Bravo says the average Burberry customer's age dropped by thirty years.

She still needed one thing, though. To succeed in any kind of fashion business, you need a great designer. That can be a problem, because name designers don't come cheap, if they come at all.

But what if you could find a great designer that wasn't in a rush to get his name on everything? Then you might be describing Christopher Bailey

If you're outside the fashion world and don't recognize Bailey's name, don't panic. You're not alone. He's described as modest, and a team player, and unassuming. He is probably all of those things, but he is also a very, very good designer.

Bravo hired him away from Gucci in 2001. Since then Bailey has shown a knack for using the Burberry check and historic designs in all kinds of interesting ways. And there are always some recognizably British design elements in his creations.

Bailey works with a team of designers and he seems quite comfortable with Bravo's ideas of teamwork and seeking out good ideas wherever they are to be found. Those ideas are part of the recipe for change at Burberry that has produced some extraordinary results.

Sales have doubled from $470 million when Bravo took over at Burberry to well over a billion. Revenue has risen for five straight years. Profit last year increased by 75 percent.

What makes it all work is really very simple. Start with great people and teamwork. Look for good ideas everywhere. Pay attention to the business basics. Build on the strengths of the brand and the people. And keep moving.

Top of page

RESOURCES

You'll find Burberry on the Web, but the company really hasn't been there long and is still developing its Web presence. This is the US version of the site.

You may want to compare the US site with the UK version.

The retail and services group, GUS, is the corporate parent of Burberry and there is short history of the firm on the GUS site.

The history of fashion is an educational site for fashion history, costume history, and biograpies of fashion designers.

The site fashion-era.com has a section on Burberry.


16 November 2004

Reprinting and Reposting This Column

You may reprint or repost this article providing that the following conditions are met:

  • The article remains essentially unaltered.
  • Wally Bock is shown as the author.
  • The notice Copyright 2004 by Wally Bock or similar appears on the article.
  • Contact information for Wally is included with the article. You may refer readers to this Web site as a way to meet this requirement. Please link to http://www.bockinfo.com/
  • Here is the wording we suggest when linking to this site. "The article you've just read can be found on Wally Bock's extensive Resource Web site along with many other articles and resources."

Any other reprinting or reposting requires specific permission which is almost always granted. Click here to request permission if necessary.

 

Top of page

 

 

megastarmedia.com creative web site and graphic design
© 2004 Wally Bock. Click for Contact Information.