I’ve been Burberry-ed

It’s not often I post photos of me on this site because it’s not that kind of blog but I’m making an exception on this occasion because I know people like to see exactly who is spouting all this information and opinion every once in a while. Oh who am I kidding, I’ve been Burberry-ed!

Me and Burberry go back a long way. I bought my first trench in 2001 when I’d reached a satisyfying point in my career. A few years earlier I styled some of the first rebranded Burberry samples in a shoot for The Express which was highlighting the heritage revival a decade early (Austin Reed, Aquascutum and Pringle were also enjoying a re-brand). This photo by Alan Clarke is still one of my favourites…

A little while later I clashed Burberry checks (actually I think this was a riff on Burberry, not the real thing) with Judith Leiber crystals in a shoot for The Guardian (‘scuse the fuzziness, these are Polaroids)…

In fact, looking back at these pictures shot in Hackney, you can see how Burberry slipped into so-called Chav-dom, but that phrase hadn’t been invented yet. We were trying to take the stuffiness out of Burberry and show it in a more youth-centric, free-spirited light…

Back to the billboard pic (by Jon Cardwell), it was taken as part of Burberry’s Art Of The Trench project to promote the new Regent Street megastore. Art Of The Trench was the first social networking site to use beautifully-shot non-models to reinforce a brand’s signature product. Since its launch, we have seen similar initiatives from Jimmy Choo and Armani. But Burberry stands out for its meaningful execution and high production values. And it absolutely works. In one hour I was texted or tweeted three separate sightings of my billboard, which I obviously retweeted and posted on my personal Facebook. So far I think I have had about 150 Facebook likes, a few Facebook shares and umpteen retweets. (In fact, I also got a tweet from someone inspired to buy a trench – er, except hers was All Saints. But still…)

When people see someone they know in an ad campaign, it gives them a personal, feelgood connection to the brand. And what I like the most is the exclusive-but-inclusive element of Art of The Trench. It keeps its luxury position by dint of its gorgeous photography, yet by using genuine, international-looking non-models (who fit the Burberry aesthetic but aren’t styled to the hilt) it also has an all-important ‘that could be me’ inclusiveness. Simple on paper, so hard to achieve in reality.

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