London Fashion Week | Burberry’s Christopher Bailey
Posted by Lucky on Feb 26, 2010
For the second season running, Burberry showed its Prorsum collection at the end of London fashion week. It’s quite fun, all things considered — all the big editors come out, Rachel Zoe turns up, and a bit of quality and excitement gets injected into proceedings. And people harass Christopher Bailey, too. Seriously, the whole of London has a whale of a time with it. It’s probably not so much fun for him, but he’d never let on.
You must be exhausted. You’ve had a hundred people asking all the same questions over and over again!
A little, yes! I’m fine, though.
So. Your show … sexy girls in big men’s jackets. You’re not tired of romance yet?
I wanted it to feel sexy, and I always like the idea of romance. I also wanted the girls to feel strong as well. I like the idea of making a girl feel protected in a big outerwear piece. Protected and sexy at the same time. I like the feeling that things are not too precious. I think things should feel thrown on and casual. Nothing is worse than fashion when it looks like it’s trying to hard.
And you’re selling all of this collection online now, which is great. Do you think you’re going to start showing different things at different times, though? So you’re not trying to sell people big coats at the start of spring?
I think the whole industry is changing, and we all need to start challenging ourselves. It’s very difficult to turn things around that quickly because you’ve got raw materials, you’ve got yarns, you’ve got everything you’ve got to do up front in order to change your supply chain cycle. But I do think that digitalization of the world is forcing all of us to think about the way that we sell and the way that people buy, and the way that people experience a brand.
I think it’s changing more quickly than people think. I think in a few years time we’ll be looking at a system completely unrecognizable from what it is today. I hope so, anyway.
I absolutely agree. I think the customer is moving quicker than all of us. The market is there and the brands need to catch up. It’s exciting! I love digital technology, and I think it’s so exciting what you can do with it.
Like streaming your whole show in 3-D!
Yes — I really want to convey the atmosphere of our shows online. The show is about creating an energy when you enter into space. … It’s about, for example, making sure that if it’s raining people are not going to get wet. It’s about second-guessing every eventuality. So when you come in hopefully the music is already starting to create the atmosphere, the scent in the room makes you feel the mood, the lighting is right. I want to get that feeling on the Internet, so we worked with experts, we worked with Sky, we have a whole team of digital experts in place — young digital experts that come from all different areas — and we kind of have a very tight group of people that love working in that arena. I’m really, really excited about technology!
source: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/london-fashion-week-burberrys-christopher-bailey/
