A Champion of Planetary Plaid Power
Market research doesn’t get much better than an upstairs room at Mr. Chow’s filled with 24 of the most influential and powerful women in Los Angeles.
As the perfectly groomed women of all ages but one income tax bracket filed into the Beverly Hills restaurant on Tuesday, many had mixed their Armanis and Chanels with a plucky Brit--Burberry and its trademark red, black and camel plaid. Luncheon guest of honor Burberry chief executive Rose Marie Bravo trained her dark-brown eyes with much satisfaction onto their scuff-free shoes, purses, hats and coats.
A charming Burberry plaid tote swung from the arm of Kelly Chapman Meyer, wife of Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer, while Lauren King of the King World Productions empire mixed her vintage ivory Burberry coat and trousers with Hermes accessories. China Chow, daughter of restaurant owner Mr. Chow, topped her long, black locks with a sun-shading Burberry plaid floppy hat. Clearly, these fashion trendsetters had already adopted the brand, and in uniquely fashionable ways, to the delight of Bravo. Chow’s determined quest for her hat took her to three Burberry stores, the last the London boutique.
“I didn’t tell anybody to wear Burberry,” said lunch organizer Wendy Goldberg, contributing editor to the recently published book “Hollywood Moms” and wife of producer Leonard Goldberg. “But can you imagine once they open the store?” The Burberry store she referred to will be an 8,000-square-foot emporium, slated to open in mid-September at Wilshire Boulevard and Camden Drive and upgrade the corner’s Planet Hollywood past. As the 19th U.S. store, it will be a smaller version of the London flagship on Bond Street, larger than South Coast Plaza’s, and in many ways, more important than both.
When fashionistas and tourists alike enter the new store, they will witness the continuing transformation of the 145-year-old brand created by Thomas Burberry, who invented gabardine, a tough, water-resistant fabric that was cut into coats for World War I trench warfare--hence, the trench coat.
When Bravo, a former chief executive of I. Magnin, left her job as president of Saks Fifth Avenue to head Burberry in 1997, she swept away its fusty image for a fun and fashion-forward look. Burberry’s trademark check (as it’s called in Britain) began to appear on clever coats, scandalously short miniskirts and up-to-date bags and shoes. Later, she and Italian designer Roberto Menichetti developed an upper-tier division of more avant-garde sportswear called Prorsum and began to stage runway shows to receptive audiences in London. While Menichetti brought innovation and sex appeal (last year he was named one of People magazine’s “sexiest men alive”), he and Bravo mutually ended his contract, allowing him to pursue other projects in Italy.
His successor, newly appointed design director Christopher Bailey, an alum of Gucci and London’s Royal College of Art, will be based in London, a move that is expected to add to the brand’s Britishness. A year after Bravo’s arrival, the privately held Burberry was hit hard by the Asian downturn. Yet this year, industry sources say, sales have surged 45%. That success and Bravo’s long retailing history have made her a highly regarded executive in business and academia. On Monday, San Francisco’s Academy of Art College awarded the London resident an honorary doctorate, her second.
As she continues to build Burberry into what she calls “a worldwide, accessible luxury brand,” Bravo sees Los Angeles as playing a pivotal role. A free-standing store adds presence to the company, anchors it in a trendsetting market, and also gives it a window into the world, she said.
“It’s very much a Mediterranean lifestyle here,” said Bravo. “If [the look] works in L.A., it works in Portofino, it works in the south of France, it works in Majorca.”
But unlike other fashion resurrections of once-faded names, such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Celine and Balenciaga, Bravo isn’t aiming only for the top tier. “We’re not about a certain arrogance or elitism,” Bravo said. “We’re trying a more democratic approach. We have an internal tag line,” she said. “Burberry at any age.”
The lunching ladies gave proof of Bravo’s motto when they listed thongs, bikinis and vintage coats as their Burberry favorites. That news made Bravo happy that footwear, swimwear and a bit of the company’s past, present and future hit a resonant chord among the well-dressed. Bravo tops her own conservative business suits with a silky Burberry coat lined in abstract plaid, and accessorizes with a chunky Verdura bracelet. She’d fit right into the whimsical ad campaigns created by photographer Mario Testino and art director Fabien Baron, who posed British models Kate Moss and Stella Tennant in amusing situations, completely clad in Burberry.
One ad included a Burberry-upholstered baby carriage that later helped spur the newest collection, Burberry Baby. “Stella Tennant was pregnant at the time of the shoot and she was showing. We said, let’s show her pregnant because babies are part of the Burberry lifestyle,” Bravo said. When customers began requesting the nearly $5,000 stroller, Bravo identified an opportunity for expansion. Soon, toddler trench coats, tiny jean jackets and cashmere baby scarves will be part of the lineup.
With a new designer, a new store and new collections in place, Bravo has amassed ammunition to
keep interest high in her company and its identifiable--and often copied--plaid. She spends heavily on legal bills to protect the trademark from unflattering imitations while carefully monitoring fashion’s appetites for logos and graphic patterns. “Overexpansion can kill a brand,” she said, and noted the plaid’s subtle placement as trim, a lining or an accent.
“Plaid will always be a part of our lives--just as Chanel would never dream of giving up its double Cs or Gucci its Gs,” she said. Bravo’s most revolutionary act may be positioning Burberry as the luxury goods company for everyone--baby, socialite and grandpa too. “It’s fun, friendly and not so serious,” she said. “Shopping should be fun.”
