Burberry

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History:

(In this part of the text, called History, Origin and Inventor will be included as well. This because, in my opinion, they are all connected)

Burberry was founded in 1856. The man behind the brand was called Thomas Burberry. He was English and therefore lived in England. He opened his first store in Basingstoke (England).

As I said it was founded in 1856. In 1860 the brand (known as Burberry) became very well known and in some cases even called an “emporium”. Burberry focused on outdoor wear, often for local residents. But also for sportsmen, the brand Burberry was at the time popular among sportsmen, although today the brand is known and seen in a different way.

The owner back then was of course Thomas Burberry. But today it’s far more complicated than that. There’s not just one person being the owner, there isn’t even two, it’s actually different companies that own their own part of the brand. The majority owner of Burberry is GUS (Great Universal Stores). It’s a British company that also owns the Argos stores. It’s difficult finding information about this subject as GUS and other companies don’t want to share private information. But this is what I think; the companies owning a part of Burberry gets the same percentage of the income as the percentage of Burberry that they own. Although sometimes it can be different when for example one of the companies designs something and sells it, the company that designed the product is going to get let’s say 80% and the money that’s over is then going to be split up between the rest of the companies (following the “rule” I mentioned,; “…gets the same percentage of the income as the percentage of Burberry that they own…”)

Anyway, GUS is the company owning the majority of Burberry and therefore has the most power, if voting occurs about a decision, they will always be the majority. But what do the other companies get then? Well, they get a lot of money. Even though if things change into something they don’t want to, they’ll always get money. Always a small percentage (at least). Burberry is a huge brand and in 2003/2004 the selling of Burberry products was estimated to approximately £2.5 billion. Just think, 1% of that is £2 500 000 (32 500 000 kr!), and that’s just one single percent.

In 1880 Thomas Burberry invented a new fabric, called gabardine. It was the first fabric ever that was both waterproof and breathable. As if that wasn’t enough the fabric is also very durable. In 1888 Mr. Burberry took out a patent on it.

During the 1890’s Thomas Burberry opened his first shop in London. It was situated at the Haymarket - and still is today. Although today it’s not an ordinary shop, it’s the headquarter of the whole brand Burberry.

The forerunner to today’s trench coat was the Tielocken Coat. It was designed by Thomas Burberry. At the time he did most of the designing himself, but that was soon to be changed when he opened more stores and mass production was a factor.

The year was 1901 and Thomas Burberry’s new task was to design the new service uniform for British officers. That was when the Burberry logo was founded as well (picture to the right). It was called the Burberry Equestrian Knight and was soon to come a trademark.
It was also during this decade that Mr. Burberry opened stores in Paris and New York.

Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer was the first man to reach the South Pole on December the 11th 1911. Why I mention this is because he was dressed in Burberry. As the explorer’s success became known world wide, so did Burberry. Roald Amundsen left a gabardine Burberry tent to inform Captain Scott and the rest of the world about the success.
Three years later (1914), another explorer decided to do something no human had done before. His name was Ernest Shackleton and he was going to cross the Antarctic continent – from coast to coast. And he did. He was also wearing Burberry clothing.

These two persons had made the brand Burberry known as a very good brand with high quality. For what other reason would a person chose Burberry when crossing one of the coldest places on earth if not because of quality and factors as warmth, strength and so on. Also in 1914, Burberry started adapting his products after the needs and equipment of the time.

1924 was an important year. That was when the Burberry pattern / Check was designed, the check as well as the Knight logo became a trademark.

1926 Thomas Burberry died. He became 91 years old.

1930 Burberry once again became a sponsor. This time it was a couple that was going to beat the fastest flying time between London and Cape Town. The race was won by the couple in a De Havilland DH88 – sponsored by Burberry.

The Second World War was over and it was a bit of a hard time for Burberry too. People couldn’t afford to buy expensive clothes like his. But in 1950 there was a turn. In 1955 Burberry was awarded The Royal Warrant from Her Majesty the Queen.

1960 Burberry developed new styles and the brand wasn’t afraid of trying new things. In 1967 The Burberry pattern was for the first time used on other products than coats. This collection contained umbrellas and other accessories.

By 1970 Burberry stores were in all big cities. Paris, London, New York etc. In 1970 Another store opened in New York, this time it was a huge store at the East 57th Street.

1980 Burberry expanded rapidly in the USA. It was a period of wealth in the country and Burberry stores opened in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and in California.
In 1989 it was once again time for Burberry to get a Royal Warrant, this time from His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

1997 was like a revolution. Burberry was releasing new designs, new collections, new product ranges and new advertisement campaigns.
This was the beginning of a new period were Burberry was very famous, very rich and loved by many. To wards the end of the decade a British newspaper honored the brand and chose it like a winner in two categories; Classic and Contemporary.

Since the beginning of the new millennium no drastic changes have occurred. New stores have opened around the world, new fragrances are often released by the brand and it has a much wider collection. Although they are still trying to keep that old typical English style.


Economy:

In the beginning when Thomas Burberry was still alive, there weren’t many stores and therefore not as high costs. But it didn’t take a very long time before Thomas opened new stores around the world. Thomas died and The World Wars started and people became poor and worried. People didn’t spend money on clothing as they used to. This was hard times for the brand but also after the wars during depressions and during periods where countries had to be built up the selling didn’t go very well. During wars at least the English army bought fabrics from Burberry and he could cover his costs/expenses. But the years after the wars were horrible. Although he did have man y stores around the world and the brand had become very famous after being a sponsor of unique explorers and expeditions. Burberry managed to get through two world wars with out concurs. The hardest time was now passed, now it was all about getting more famous, opening more stores and finding new ways of earning money.

In the beginning of the new millennium, Burberry started opening stores in Asia. But why invest in Asia? In countries like China and Japan there are far more people living than in Europe. A few years after the staking in Asia, Burberrys was their economy rising dramatically. Turnover increased from £428 million to £676 million, just in a few years.


Geographic Location:

Burberry stores are everywhere, actually in all parts of the world. But in some countries there are more stores than in some continents. For example in China there are around 20 stores. In the whole Europe there are approximately 12! Why are the stores situated like this? As I mentioned earlier there are many more people living in just china than in Europe- It’s al about money. The stores in China are all situated in the east, because that’s where all the big cities are and also all the rich people.

There’s not one single Burberry store in Sweden. Although many private stores in Sweden import Burberry products and sell them, this process is going on in South America and many other places too.


Production Process, Tools and Materials used:

Tools and materials used when making products have changed a lot since the beginning of the brad, and that isn’t much of a surprise as the brand was founded more than a hundred years ago. Although Burberry started the brand after the industrial revolution in England so he was probably using some machinery. In the beginning when he just had one store he probably had people working for him and helping him produce all of these products. But as time went on, many more stores were opened and it became standard for companies to produce / make their products using machinery. So Burberry also started making their clothes using machinery more and more, although brands like Burberry, Armani and Gucci but a lot of effort into quality. That’s why, even today, some things are made by hand because the machines sometimes aren’t as accurate. But this in its turn makes the product much more expensive, but some people think it’s worth it.

Materials then, as Burberry founded his own material called gabardine and had a patent on it, he used it a lot. At the time it was a unique material and people would rather buy the unique, and at the time modern, material than the “ordinary” materials they could buy anywhere. Today the brand uses a big variety of materials. They use “ordinary” materials like wool, cotton and silk, but also cashmere and of course their own gabardine.

Most of Burberrys collections are made in England. That’s the difference between Nike and brands like Burberry and Armani. Nike use people in poor countries like Malaysia where they give the workers very small salaries. Although it’s well known world wide that products from China aren’t very good when it comes to quality. Burberry knows this and that’s why they don’t make their products in less developed countries, they are also careful with how the rest of the world look at the brand.


Uses:

Since the beginning of the brand until now, just as many other things, the people wearing the brand Burberry has changed a lot. In the beginning (as I’ve mentioned a couple of times) Thomas Burberry made clothes for military and explorers who needed special clothes made out of special materials, gabardine for example. Also compared to other clothing at that time Burberry was of very good quality.

As time passed and the 20th century began, fashion came up. Of course it had been there before but now it was different – styles were created, new brands, different trends and people cared about how they looked. Around the 2nd world war it was trendy to have small breasts so women actually did plastic surgeries to make their breast smaller. This doesn’t have anything to do with Burberry but it shows how people changed and started caring about how they look in a new way.
As Burberry became very famous thanks to the explorers wearing the brands clothes, the checked clothing became a trend, but it was thanks to Burberry and it was the Burberry checks/pattern that became very popular. But it wasn’t just Burberry that became famous and worn by many, also other brands like Gucci. Gucci Gucciano made a success in the US with his bags – so did Burberry with their clothes.

Both Burberry and Gucci were, and still are, very expensive brands. Because of this reason it was mostly rich people wearing the brands products. A scarf from Burberry costs around 1200 kr (at least mine does) and a Gucci hand bag, just big enough for your mobile phone and a little bit of make up to fit in, can cost around 5000 kr!

Today coats and other things from Burberry that are very expensive are mostly worn by people that can afford it, and those people tend to be rich. But there are a lot of people that aren’t that rich but still wear Burberry and other expensive brands. You get a lot of attention from other people, and some likes that – some don’t.

Although today a lot of young people tend to buy scarfs, caps and other accessories. I need to say that it’s much nicer when small details on people are made by famous brands, like scarf’s and other accessories, but coats can also be nice as long as they are unobtrusive, e.g. the Burberry checks on the inside of the cap or coat etc.


Development:

Throughout my text I’ve mentioned a lot about the development and there’s not much I can say now without repeating myself. The only thing I’d like to add when it comes to the development of the brand is that in the beginning, the majority (but NOT everybody) wearing the brand were old people. But after Burberry’s commercials it slowly started to change into the brand that it is today. Commercials were one of the things used to change the view of the brand.


Problems and Solutions:

Once again, I’ve mentioned some problems throughout the text, for example that they had to do something to reach out to younger people and make them wear the brands products as well, otherwise the brand wouldn’t have any future.

But there’s one problem I’d like to discuss because it’s happening right now, in modern time. There is something called Firms among football supporters. They dress casually (they wear Burberry, Aquascutum, Prada and other exclusive brands), that good, but the thing is that they are hooligans and they fight for they football club when wearing these clothes. Burberry is the most famous brand among these people, especially caps.

But what is the problem? When these firms fight against each other it often happeneds that someone gets killed or seriously damaged. This makes Burberry look really bad, because it’s worn by criminals running around beating each other up! Caps are worn a lot as I said, and especially the ones with the checks on the outside. When the firms are on TV everybody will notice the Burberry checks and this will give the brand a bad image. Henri Lloyd has the same problems and people in England refuse to wear clothes from the brand because of hooligans wearing them as well. Burberry and other brands are scared of getting this dirty image, and because of this Burberry in 2004 decided to stop producing the most famous cap of them all – the one with the checks on the outside.


Employees, pay and treatment:

I mentioned earlier that the majority of all Burberry products are made in England, but that’s just the majority, some are also made in LEDC’s (less economically developed countries); like Malaysia (China is actually on it’s way to become a MEDC, more economically developed country).
The things that Burberry sell the most (scarf’s, caps, coats, pike shirts, ordinary shirts etc) are all made in England. But why? Well, as most people buy them it is these clothes that will give the brand its image, these clothes has to be of good quality so people look at the brand as a good brand with high quality products.

But everything isn’t made in England; some things are actually made in LEDC’s. Often small accessories are made there, like key rings. Not many buy key rings from Burberry, so Burberry therefore produces them cheaply in LEDC’s (people get lower salaries in LEDC’s, cheaper raw materials as well, although lower quality), and sell them expensively around the world. They take the opportunity in act to earn money in a “dirty” way with out getting a bad image because of it.

But Burberry doesn’t mention this because of their image (once again). But why does this give a bad image? First of all people working in those factories making these silly key rings gets badly paid for long hours of work, because a capitalist company wants to earn more money. It wouldn’t surprise me if Burberry did a commercial about how nice they are to the nature instead, just to look good.

When I talk about quality you probably think that there actually is a big different between clothes med in LEDC’s and in MEDC’s. But there is. The picture below shows you one examples of what often happens:


The pull-over is from the brand Gant, very famous and classy, like Burberry. This pull-over is maid in Hong Kong and after 3 washings you can see the result of bad quality on the right picture.

I tend to be careful about this and buy clothes made in England, Italy, Portugal and similar countries, there is a big difference.


Policies, Slogans and Public Relations:

Burberry doesn’t have a policy which they use everywhere, but buy reading on their website you can clearly see that they consider themselves as an exclusive, high-quality brand. They keep using exclusive over and over again, but my opinion is that they do have the right to do it. They are exclusive, they do have high-quality clothes, what makes the bran a bit unique is that it has a history showing that they really care about their clothes and that in the beginning the clothes were made with a lot of love and passion – and still are in a certain manner. On their website they also mention that they want to keep the old style but in a modern way. They keep the checks, and always will. Before Burberry became as famous as it is among young people today, it was said that checks are just for old people. But thanks to Burberry, Aquascutum and other brands using checks it has become a trend.

But everybody doesn’t like Burberry, a lot of people actually don’t. People against capitalism tend to dislike brands like Lacoste, Burberry and Evisu, because they earn a lot of money – maybe too much money? But that’s life; the world would be boring if everybody had the same opinion.


Comparison:

You can compare brands, but every brand is different from the other, in one way or another. You could divide all brands in to classes, like social classes (ranks).

The ones at the top are Gucci, Louis Vitton, and then come Prada, Armani etc. But everybody has different opinions about this, but you can not compare Gucci and Burberry, Gucci is way above Burberry in price and people look at them in two completely different ways. Although you could definitely compare it with for example Lacoste, Burberry is a little bit more expensive but not much. The biggest difference between them is that Lacoste is a sporty brand; while Burberry is more of a classy brand (classy is actually a similarity to Gucci). Although I just want to add that Lacoste is actually a mixture between classy and sporty.

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