Burberry without restrictions?

[CDNSushi]

Possibly. But then again, a lot of people make it their business to know this stuff inside and out. A few months ago for a lesson, I brought in a fake Louis Vuitton wallet I bought from a shifty stall vendor in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It cost me like $5 and the real McCoy is closer to $200.

I plopped it down on the table and asked one of my students how much he'd give me for it. He picked it up, opened it, looked at it for about 10 seconds and put it back down again before saying, "Nothing. It's fake."

So I asked him. "True. But how did you know?"

He said, "Easy. You can spot a cheap fake by the LV monograms. There should be a centered LV on both the front AND back sides of the wallet, and yours only has it on the front side."

Needless to say, I was impressed. :-) But you're probably right -- for every 100 people wearing "Burberry" there's liable to be some with Thomson Camels.

[The Wizard of BC]

Well, I live in a town that should know Tartans. And perhaps 40% of the brown scarves I see downtown are Thompson. I also have a shop across from a High School and see perhaps 60% Thompson over the real thing.

I had three ladies come into the shop last week. Each was sporting something with Thompson Camel. One lady had a real long scarf that she made a point of telling me about. According to her she bought it in Scotland so of course it was the real thing.

I didn't say anything. I just laid a similar side-by-side comparison on the counter very casually and let it sit there as the ladies looked over the jewelry in the case. I know they all saw it.

As the ladies left the shop and walked down the street I saw all of them checking the tags on their Tartan items.

[Phil]

Here in the UK Burberry got a terrible name when it became the fashion of choice of the "Chavs" (trailer trash). They were prepared to pay the inflated prices for it too but the result was that its former core market deserted it in droves and I don't see much sign of them returning. This has obviously not happened overseas but it is a pointer as to how you will be regarded here if seen wearing the stuff - not I think how you would have expected. A salutory lesson for the marketing people who should have pulled those lines long before they became debased.

[English Bloke]

... Here in the UK Burberry got a terrible name ...

I agree with Phil. I quite like the Thompson Camel as a tartan but I wouldn't EVER wear a kilt in it as unfortunately it now screams 'chav' over here. Burberry or anything similar is worn as a badge by the mildly delinquent to identify themselves to each other. Shame really. Thompson Camel is still a nice tartan and would probably make a very nice kilt. Oh well, I guess I'll never know!

By the way, browsing the Register (as you do) that Thompson Black is quite nice too...

Thompson Black

[CDNSushi]

That is indeed too bad. Probably wouldn't dissuade me from a Thomson Camel kilt as I don't often find myself in the UK, and I didn't know what on earth a "chav" was until very recently.

Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for a kilt that's in the beige-brown-tan (earth tone) end of the spectrum, which is why I've always been drawn to the Thomson Camel... But I imagine there must be other earth-tone tartans that wouldn't get you mistaken for the local riff-raff...

[Nanook]

Here in the UK Burberry got a terrible name when it became the fashion of choice of the "Chavs" (trailer trash).

Its always been somewhere between "good" and "bad".

They were prepared to pay the inflated prices for it too but the result was that its former core market deserted it in droves and I don't see much sign of them returning.

Burberry is quite on the road back to IN among the target group. Their margins are better than ever since they are multiple sourced and even license their trademarks, designs and logos to others. Despite the current economic climate, especially in retailing, their stock shares are doing comparatively well. A substantial portion of the groups profits has been and continues to be in Asia, particularly Japan and NOT the UK so this could roll-over. In the UK even before the "Chavs", ex-Sprice Girls and Danniella Westbrook took things downmarket among the "swank" Burberry was long "out" and replaced by brands such as Allegri (quality and more fashionable design starting with Giorgio Armani in 1976 and followed up by a number of "hip" designers to Viktor and Rolf today) who were better at turning classic trench designs into fashion. The problem with Burberry was not the 16 year old school leavers but their own designs and product quality. They were neither retro (having adopted modern synthetic materials instead of gabardine and leather) nor fashion (other than the tartan and a few trademark elements) but acceptable but not outstanding clothing sold at an exclusive price.
The brand, however, has been turned around. Rose Marie Bravo as CEO changed the focus to fashion and following the Allegri model Chris Bailey got hired in 2001. Burberry with its "Brit-Chic" became quite hip in Milan. Their turnover doubled. They also hired a lot of continental management and sales talent from some of the big luxury brands to do things right. Bravo reinvented the brand.
2004 was a bad time for Burberry in the UK as they became the butt of the blvd press.The CHAV thing just got out of control. The tartan became Chav and Essex girl in the mass circulation dailies. Part of Burberry's response was not just to sue anyone using a similar tartan (such as a few of the Camel variations) but also to use the tartan less. The "Burberry's check" is now more or less nearly gone from Burberry's signature.

[CDNSushi]

Hmm, come to think of it, that's exactly what's happened with Louis Vuitton in Japan. It USED to be that only the upper-class, rich people bought the stuff, but slowly, its status was denigrated into a way of the nation's riff-raff of identifying each other.

It all started with enjo kosai when sugar-daddies would buy LV purses for their girls.

[The Wizard of BC]

Consumer warning!!!!

Personal rant begins......

I have a Burberry Trench Coat from the early '70's. I always wanted a real Burberry. From The long fiber Egyptian cotton and Linen cloth to the hand waxed seams to the hand forged hardware and real horn and leather.
I'm pretty rough on my clothes but that coat still looks brand new and is the only coat I wear in the rain.

I went into a Burberry store in '02 just to look around and was sickened by the cheap "Fashion" stuff they were selling. I happened to be wearing my trench coat at the time and no one in the store could remember it or even knew what it was.

I don't care if their market share is 100% I won't buy anything from them again. They have taken a classicly styled, industructably durable, infinatly practical garment and dropped it in favor of "fashionable today".

So I have to disagree with the above statement "acceptable but not outstanding clothing sold at an exclusive price". Burberry was once the world's leading producer of a coat that could survive the trenches of WWI. Sure they cost, but like a hand sewn "Tank" it will outlast 4 or 5 of the fashion Kilts on the market today.
And I'll put the styling of my 40 year old coat up against anything that is on this years runways.

And BTW, my coat does not have a liner in The Burberry Check. That was the beginning of the cheapening and destruction of a classic.

Rant over, I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

[Nanook]

I have a Burberry Trench Coat from the early '70's.

In the 1960s Burberrys was the leading making of quality raincoats. This started to go rapidly downhill in the 1970s as they "adjusted" to a changing market.

I always wanted a real Burberry. From The long fiber Egyptian cotton and Linen cloth to the hand waxed seams to the hand forged hardware and real horn and leather.

By the mid 1970s their cloth went to mixed fibre poplin and they got (due to customer desire) lighter in weight. The 1980s saw a lot of readjustment to the "rainwear" market with Gore-Tex microfibre on the one hand taking over the market with full gale force and waxed J Barbour jackets going from ramblers and farmers to the city. In that era I got the "classic" Allegri (heavy cotton) and the heaviest Bardour jacket (Northumbria). I will still wear them. (both makers, however, too have moved over to sell some less than stellar, cheaper garments made offshore).

I went into a Burberry store in '02 just to look around and was sickened by the cheap "Fashion" stuff they were selling.

Better than the less than outstanding and somewhat unfashionable stuff targeted for the 40-50 year old set that they were selling in the 1980s and 1990s. In the mid 1980s the trench coat was quite fashionable and they did some very good turnover with out-sourced products. Quality into the 1990s seemed really up and down.

I don't care if their market share is 100% I won't buy anything from them again. They have taken a classicly styled, industructably durable, infinatly practical garment and dropped it in favor of "fashionable today".

This happened a long time ago. Burberry stopped really being Burberry in 1955 when they went from being a specialty maker of Gabardine rainwear to a maker of consumer trenchcoats as part of Great Universal Stores (once the leading mail order business in the UK). Burberry became a part of what many viewed as "not part of the establishment". Sir Isaac Wolfson (chairman of GUS) funded a number of "establishment" colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge--- in addition to several in Israel. GUS like Burtons and M&S worked closely with producers in Israel. Isaac Wolfson btw. eventually left the UK and moved, I recall in the 1980s, to Israel due to what he saw as the unrelenting antisemitism in the British establishment (to paraphrase him "its not that the doors to clubs is closed but as soon as you get in, everyone else leaves").

So I have to disagree with the above statement "acceptable but not outstanding clothing sold at an exclusive price". Burberry was once the world's leading producer of a coat that could survive the trenches of WWI.

That's the whole garment industry. Not just Burberry but Allegri, Bardour and ... are these days global.. and subcontract in China instead of produce in their traditional factories. The decline here, I think, one could already see in the early 1970s when Korea invested heavily in textile industrialization and brought many garment makers into attractive and highly lucrative joint ventures with companies that these days people associate with consumer electronics (such as Samsung).

As a side note: The check was widely adopted in 1967 so if you wish you could think of it as part of the signs of things to come :-)
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