ZA's Profile

I believe that Burberry has done a fantastic job at introducing digital elements to its business model, first driven by Angela Ahrendts, a CEO who truly understood the power that digital could play. Even as Angela stepped down (she is now VP of Retail for Apple), the company re-affirmed its commitment to finding new solutions and only recently announced the most disruptive change that the fashion industry has experienced in the past decade: “see now, buy now”. Launched in September 2016, this new approach allows final consumers (you and me) to shop live clothing worn by model, as the catwalk takes place. this required a major overhaul of the whole supply chain, which was used to present a fashion collection, and deliver it to stores 9-12 months later, as per industry standard. This could also be interpreted as a defensive move against fast-fashion retailers (ie Zara), which have built their own business model on the lag that is present from the time a high end collection is presented during the fashion show to when it is sold in stores. Historically, this lag has allowed fast-fashion brands to see the trends of the season as seen during the show, copy them and replicate those same patterns and designs for their own collections, and being able to distribute them in Zara stores at the same time as they hit Burberry stores. See more here: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/burberry-aligns-runway-and-retail-calendar-in-game-changing-shift