Christopher Bailey, Burberry Chief Creative Officer, Is Leaving
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“We believe this is a necessary move to make Burberry exciting again,” Luca Solca, head of luxury goods at the investment company Exane BNP Paribas, wrote in an analyst note. “Creative directors — like all artists (painters, composers, singers) — tend to produce variations on a theme. Most brands that have gone through a revival had to first find new creative resources.’’
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Red Carpet Looks by Burberry
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Known for his geniality and for keeping a low profile in an industry that tends to celebrate the extreme, Mr. Bailey joined Burberry as design director in 2001, when the company was struggling to create a fashion identity under Roberto Menichetti.
Appointed creative director in 2004 and chief creative officer in 2009, Mr. Bailey positioned Burberry as a conduit of Britishness to the world, working with actors, musicians and artists to amplify his fashion message into one of cultural leadership.
Like Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, Mr. Bailey’s skill lay in taking the major ingredients of a heritage brand — in Burberry’s case, the checks, the trench coat and its roots in the British countryside — and continually moving them toward the abstract and into a cooler, more contemporary aesthetic.
He was among the first designers to embrace the digital age, making Burberry one of the most-followed companies on the FTSE 100. Along with two former chief executives, Rose Marie Bravo and Angela Ahrendts, he transformed Burberry into such a dominant player that at one point insiders joked London Fashion Week should be renamed “Burberry London Fashion Week.”
It was a formula that appeared easy to imitate, and brands from Mulberry to Pringle to Hunter attempted similar reinventions, but none had the same success.
“He has been a huge influence on everything in fashion over the last couple of years,” said Jonathan Saunders, the Scottish designer who is now creative director of Diane von Furstenberg. “At one moment almost all young British independent designers went to him for advice about their business and career.”
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Recently, however, Burberry’s star had begun to dim.
Ms. Ahrendts left for Apple in 2014, and Mr. Bailey was appointed chief executive and chief creative officer, a first for both a billion-dollar fashion brand and a major designer.
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Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
His arrival in the boardroom coincided with an industrywide slump in global luxury sales, which was prompted by a crackdown on gift-giving and a slowdown in economic growth in China, geopolitical instability and volatile foreign exchange rates. Burberry sales soon flagged across key markets, particularly in China.
The Burberry share price slumped, and investors grew increasingly anxious about whether Mr. Bailey could successfully juggle the roles of both creative and commercial leader in a more uncertain trading environment. Many also attacked his hefty pay package. In 2015, he took a 75 percent pay cut, although his salary rose from £1.9 million ($2.52 million) to £3.5 million ($4.64 million) last year, and he received £10.5 million ($13.9 million) in shares this summer.
Aesthetic inspiration seemed to have been traded for strategic change: under Mr. Bailey, Burberry was among the first brands to merge multiple lines at different price points into a single offering, combine the men’s and women’s shows into one, and move to a see now-buy now system in which clothes became available as soon as they were shown.
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Finally, last July, he ceded to pressure to bring in new senior management, appointing Marco Gobbetti, then the head of the French luxury house Céline, to the role of Burberry chief executive. His most recent shows were among his best received, though the decision to focus on the creative offering also seems the first step in a transition to a new leadership team. A father of young girls, he began to talk about spending more time with his family.
Mr. Gobbetti, in a statement, said Mr. Bailey had been instrumental in Burberry’s transformation, adding, “the legacy he leaves and the exceptional talent we have at Burberry give me enormous confidence in our future.”
Burberry has made no announcement about a possible successor to Mr. Bailey, and would not commit to a timeline. The questions now become, will the company choose a relative unknown, and will the next stage involve a continuum, or a turnaround?
One name already being mentioned is that of the Céline designer Phoebe Philo, also English and Mr. Gobbetti’s former colleague. She was long rumored to be a potential successor to Mr. Bailey.
The one thing that is certain is that the decision will be watched very closely — as will Mr. Bailey’s next move. Meanwhile, his legacy continues to be written: Burberry’s half-year earnings report is due Nov. 9, and Mr. Bailey’s final show for Burberry will take place in February.
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Article source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/americas/atlantic-storms-maria-jose-lee/index.html
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