Checkered history - the return of Burberry

A year ago, everyone was saying that London Fashion Week had had it, that it has been squashed out of the spotlight by New York, Paris and Milan, and that it no longer had the cachet to attract the best designers.

Now, with the six-day show moving from the Natural History Musuem to the more spacious, elegant, and central venue of Somerset House for its 25th anniversary year, that's all been replaced by resurgent optimism. The calibre of the magazine editors attending – as accurate a barometer as any – indicates a regained prestige. Glenda Bailey of US Harper's Bazaar and Carine Roitfeld from French Vogue have front row seats, as does the biggest name in the business, American Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
 
Alexandra Shulman, her British Vogue counterpart, told the Evening Standard recently:  "Anna comes at least every other year. She will be coming primarily to support Burberry - as will [Vanity Fair's] Graydon Carter. That's a huge thing because Burberry has real clout. It's showing for the first time ever in London - normally it shows in Milan."

Christopher Bailey has made Burberry a competitor to the likes of Gucci and Dior

This is good news for LFW. Though there are several other prodigal scions of the British fashion family returning home - Pringle from Milan, Antonio Berardi from Paris, and both Matthew Williamson and Jonathan Saunders from New York – Burberry is the biggest coup. A brand which has been making clothes since 1856, when Thomas Burberry started out as a humble Basingstoke outfitter, they have just moved into a new headquarters on the banks of the Thames at Horseferry House, Westminster. That move was one of the reasons given for exhibiting in London this autumn.

The man behind the relocation, and, since 2001, most things at Burberry, is Yorkshire-born creative director Christopher Bailey, who was given an MBE for services to fashion this year. His success, the plaudits say, has been in turning a nostalgic, perhaps even stagnant brand, which for many years had seemed overly synonymous with a particular sort of mid 20th century Englishness, into a viable modern competitor to the likes of Gucci and Dior.

In part, this has meant £11,000 alligator skin handbags, £450 wellies and getting Sarah Jessica Parker to wear a Burberry coat during the Sex and the City movie. But Bailey has managed to keep Burberry's British heritage – one 'snood', a tight-fitting hood for a parka, was inspired by what Ernest Shackleton wore on his Antarctic expedition of 1914.

Along with this challenge of updating its quintessential Britishness, Burberry under Bailey has also had to confront the unintentional popularity of its Haymarket check – the black, red and tan pattern on a beige background, which, in the early years of this decade, had turned into a de riguer uniform for the young white working class, or anyone who wanted to poke fun at chav culture.

The label forced Goldie Lookin’ Chain to destroy a car they had painted BurberryIt reached a stage when Eastenders actress Daniella Westbrook earned tabloid derision when she and her baby were photographed head to toe in Burberry, when there were counterfeit Burberry baseball caps on stalls at every market – and when clubs around Britain were refusing entry to anyone sporting Burberry. So the company started to take action, from cutting down on the percentage of their designs which featured the check, to even getting a court order forcing Goldie Lookin' Chain, the spoof Welsh rap group, to destroy the Vauxhall Cavalier which they had painted in Burberry.

Talking to the Independent about Burberry's unwanted associations, Bailey said defensively: "Is it great press? No, it's not. But the point of Burberry is that it appeals across the classes."

Now though, as the fads – both for Burberry baseball caps and for laughing at those who wear them – seem to have passed, the company appears to have cast off this lingering embarrassment. Their recent ad campaign, for which Mario Testino photographed Harry Potter sylph Emma Watson and some floppy-haired boys looking moody in parkas, macs and the label's signature trenchcoat, has been everywhere. And their share price, which plunged as far down as £1.60 in November 2008 and has since recovered to over £5, would indicate. Worth an estimated £2.1bn, and with outlets in 25 countries around the world and a total of 6,000 staff, Burberry has just made it into the FTSE 100. ·