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Burberry at London Fashion Week: How should luxury balance exclusivity with accessibility?

Jan Jakub Biegala

Copyright: Burberry


The challenge for luxury brands, more than ever, is to balance their exclusivity - key to gaining aspirational clients and keeping wealthy ones - with accessibility, whether that means brand activations, relevance in current discourses, and the ability of consumer to buy into the brand's image.

To address this question, take the recent case of Burberry at London Fashion Week in September 2023. It wasn't the clothes that captured the public imagination; the divisive "Burberry Street" and Norman's Cafe collaboration campaigns received much of the attention, following in the steps of other campaigns based around the idea of the Spectacle - images or events engineered to deliver a quick bout of virality, often driven by controversy and engagement. The campaign did grow engagement with Burberry, however briefly, as indicated by Google Trends below.



To be more specific, for the duration of London Fashion Week the "Burberry Street" campaign renamed Bond Street Station, the public metro Tube station leading onto the world-renowned shopping destination. It put the Burberry brand - the name, the imposing "Knight Blue" colour, and British provenance - front and centre.

Copyright: Burberry

At what cost? Transport for London refused to name a figure, claiming only that all profits were invested back into the network. For Burberry, there was also the cost of brand equity: did it impact their name positively? While Google Trends does indicate engagement, the headline statistics don't indicate whether that engagement was constructive or negative. In luxury, where name means everything, companies are considering how to protect and strengthen it.

Returning to the cornerstones of the Burberry brand, it is hard to see how much of their ethos and values were expressed through Bond Street's renaming. It contributed to a pattern of ad bombardment, reportedly [the biggest reason for distrust of ads]. It failed to celebrate enduring heritage, craft, and perhaps most importantly, the campaign did not develop the brand's exclusivity.

The campaign came nearly a year after the recently-appointed CEO Jonathon Akeroyd and Creative Director Daniel Lee stressed that the company would "strengthen its connection with British craft, design, and art,” moving away from the previous leadership's niche references to Britishness.

With Burberry Street, perhaps this shift was overly enthusiastic, failing to convey an authentic image of what the British fashion house means to its consumers.

Authenticity and knowing your customer base counts for a lot [according to Akeroyd]. The real luxury customers are still only coming for the trench coats and aspirational consumers are their core segment. To capitalise on the high-margin accessories and leather goods divisions (right on display on their website's landing page), Burberry needs to make more conscious, intelligent references to the what they stand for, and address their ideal younger and more upmarket consumer. Creating a brief spectacle on TikTok by interfering in public spaces is one way; refocusing on heritage, Britishness, art, and how all those converge for young adults is another, likely better, way.


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