Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The IHT is pumping out these videos faster than we can keep up. Each one has revelations of interest, so we're going to keep posting them for easy reference here. Have a look at this video with Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of Burberry. Ahrendts reveals that Burberry's wholesale and retail business is almost 70% apparel, making it quite different from many other luxury brands, whose businesses are concentrated in leather goods.
She also says that Russian consumers form a significant portion of the business. Burberry's stores in Russia are amongst the most productive in the world and this productivity is based on fewer very large transactions as opposed to many transactions of a smaller size. Not only this, about 20% of the revenue from stores in London and 30% of revenues in the Middle East come from Russian customers.
Ahrends also has the mindset of merchant, which is crucial for the CEO of a fashion company. This means that while she is not a designer, she does get the product side of the business. In this case, she identified a strong potential to elevate Burberry's outerwear collection and worked with Christopher Bailey to make this happen. Other CEOs like Patrizio Bertelli at Prada, Valerie Hermann at YSL, and Diego Della Valle at Tods are also reputed to get involved in targeted fashion, to ensure customers are finding products they want.
