Kate Moss back; Burberry sales surge
Category: Career, Personality, Fashion, Lifestyle
For most models, being fired for cocaine use would be a career-ender. But for Kate Moss, it was just a bump in the road. She is back in a major ad campaign for Burberry, and the campaign is paying off handsomely indeed. Sales of her signature bag are through the roof, and overall retail sales have been spurred 23%. Now the company said Moss was an “icon” and insisted she was always “part of the Burberry family”.
The high profile ad campaign features Moss and supermodel Stella Tenant and promotes the new “Manor” handbag, which sells for the hefty price of £750. The firm says the quilted leather “Manor” was fuelling soaring sales at the high-street chain and is so popular that it is not even possible to buy one as they sold out just three weeks after launch. You have to join a waiting list to get hold of the bag.
In fact, many people are not just joining one list. They are joining every single waiting list around the world to boost their chances.
Burberry said the reaction to the ‘Manor’ has been ‘extraordinary’, even meriting a mention in its trading statement issued to the Stock Exchange yesterday, calling the demand for its new range of handbags “extraordinary”. Spending on handbags has more than doubled in five years, according to market researcher Mintel. Between 2000 and 2005, sales soared by 146 per cent to a record £350 million as women buy a handbag for every occasion. It is now commonplace for women to have a large collection of handbags to suit smart evenings out, a night in the pub or a day at work.
The madness for the ‘Manor’ has been helped by its regular appearance on the arm of various A-list celebrities. Both Liz Hurley and Sienna Miller have been photographed carrying the bag. Miss Hurley was even accompanied by two minders, just in case a passer-by’s urge for the bag proved too overwhelming.
The Manor’s popularity will be a relief for the new boss, Angela Ahrendts, a 46-year-old New Yorker lured to this country to run the very British label earlier this year. Like the Manor, Mrs Ahrendts, who joins a long list of Americans who are over-paid and over here, did not come cheap. Over the next five years, the mother-of-three could earn £19 million if she meets various performance targets.
Her basic salary is £743,000, but this is before all the extras such as her bonus of up to £1.2 million and her ‘golden hello’ of £2.3 million. With her annual clothing allowance of £14,300, she could buy 18 ‘Manors’ if she fancied it.
So far, she has proved a good investment. Since she joined in January, the value of the company has jumped about £400 million to £2.3 billion.
The handbag is part of Burberry’s new Icons Collection, launched to celebrate the founding of the company in 1856.
The company was founded by Thomas Burberry, a 21-year-old former apprentice to a country draper, who opened an outfitters shop in Basingstoke, Hants. By 1900, he had shops in Paris and New York, invented a breathable fabric called gaberdine and designed a new services uniform for British officers.
But the iconic brand which he created, best known for its red, camel, black and white trademark check, had lost its shine by the 1990s. It was not until the appointment of Mrs Ahrendts’s predecessor, Rose Marie Bravo, that new life was breathed into Burberry. The firm said sales across the world from Japan to Spain are rising quickly, and it plans to open more stores and concessions.
Tags:Burberry Kate Moss model ModelingRelated Articles:
- Skinny models banned from catwalk
- Scarlett Johansson, Sexiest Woman Alive
- Keira Knightley Voted Greatest Movie Starlet
- Top 10 Forbes Celebrity List
- Jessica Alba 2006 Best Career
