Burberry taking a PR leaf out of Barbie’s book

Since leaving my job as a newspaper fashion editor, I’ve largely watched the shows online, digesting the trends and gossip second hand from other sources. This doesn’t make me an expert, but it does place me in the same category as everyone else, a position I find useful.

When you’re in it, your front row perch accords you great access and privilege, but it can lack perspective. You might not, for example, pick up on the fact that people were cross that Burberry had paid to take over Norman’s, a lowkey North London caff, and crosser still that they’d paid for Bond Street station to be rebranded as Burberry Street.

Clearly, Burberry had taken a PR leaf out of Barbie’s book (remember Barbiecan tube station?), but with more mixed results. Some saw the moves as heavyhanded. Certainly, less established British designers – now struggling more than ever – couldn’t hope to compete. Many of them can barely afford a show, much less a marketing campaign. But as one of Britain’s few luxury heritage brands to have global reach, these are, arguably, the lengths Burberry needs to go to if it wants to compete internationally with other aggressively self-promoting French and Italian brands of its ilk.

Fashion PRs of smaller / newer / poorer LFW designers can console themselves that the British fashion press always strives to cover as many designers as possible, often battling with their news editors to do so. I know: I’ve done it.