WORDS Maud Sampson
After seven years as CEO of Burberry, Angela Ahrentdts’ departure from the luxury fashion house to take up a role as senior vice president of retail and online stores for technology giant Apple was announced last week. Established in 1856 by twenty-one year-old drapers apprentice Thomas Burberry in Basingstoke, Burberry has grown into one of the most powerful global fashion houses under the guidance of Ahrentdts; there are over 450 Burberry stores worldwide in 31 countries and Burberry.com operates in over 100 countries in 8 different languages.
Pre-2006, when she joined the company, the brand was struggling to distance itself from its signature beige plaid, which was being widely replicated in cheap rip-offs modelled by football fans and soap stars. Ahrentdts spent her first years buying back the brand by purchasing 23 copyright licenses previously sold off to other firms to ensure the company had absolute creative control.
Technology and fashion compliment each other at Burberry, a key factor in the fulfilment of Ahrentdts’ goal to “serve completely any consumer on any platform in any geography.” Ahrentdts embraced technology at a time when the industry was still wary that the Internet could cheapen a brand’s image. She recognised the global market available through the net, and has worked hard to ensure Burberry has an enduring appeal to the younger millennial generation. Her social media strategy saw the fashion house become the first to stream live catwalk shows online to involve a world audience; Burberry’s latest Apple partnership saw the launch of the new iPhone 5S through the live streaming of the brand’s most recent catwalk show. Burberry is now the most popular luxury brand on a social networking site, with 16 million likes on Facebook. Impressively, and no doubt keenly noted by Apple, Ahrendts has succeeded in marketing Burberry in China, a notoriously hard market to crack. The brand’s presence on Sina Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of YouTube) is testament to this, and last year 14% of Burberry’s income came from the Chinese.
In combination with creative director and soon to be CEO Christopher Bailey, Ahrentdts has succeeded in “de-chaving” the brand, a status confirmed in 2011 when the Duchess of Cambridge wore the now iconic trench coat on a royal outing. The pair have reclaimed Burberry’s British heritage with ad campaigns often featuring black taxis and catwalk shows culminating with a symbolic showering of petals, glitter or tinsel representing rain, the quintessentially British weather. Models are predominately British and often on the cusp of success (Burberry used the now inescapable Cara Delevigne in their 2011 Spring/Summer collection campaign, before she was snapped up by the likes of Chanel and Mulberry). Up and coming British musicians provide the soundtrack to catwalk shows and campaigns, and a section of their website is dedicated to promoting new British music. Symbolically, the fashion house moved its menswear collection from Milan to London menswear fashion week in June 2013, confirming its faith and investment in the British fashion world.
Sceptics claim Bailey will not be able to handle the dual role of CEO and creative director (only Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani have undertaken this before) and the day Ahrentdts departure was announced, half a billion pounds was knocked off Burberry’s stock market value. Yet Bailey was the obvious choice to take over the role, having always taken a notably keen interest in the commercial side of the business. He has worked closely with two transformative CEOs — Ahrentdts and her predecessor Rose Marie Bravo — and acquired a profound knowledge and loyalty to the fashion house over his twelve years with the company. Ahrentdts herself cites Bailey as “one of this generation’s great visionaries [who] will continue to lead Burberry to new heights.” Her judgement has little reason to be questioned: Revenues of the company have more than doubled during her time at Burberry to close to £2bn today.
