majorhancock
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2010
- Messages
- 78
- Reaction score
- 44
Several years ago, I bought a very simple and beautiful Burberry white poplin dress shirt for US$250.
Poplin is my preferred shirting material for the warm year-round weather here in Los Angeles, and this shirt was a favorite among my several white poplins and was worn in constant rotation. Consider me strange, but I develop strong attachments to my shirts.
After repeated wearing and washing, the shirt developed the inevitable frays in the collar and small tears around the cuff. Although I still wear it around the house for its comfort, it is no longer appropriate to be worn on any occasion that calls for a business or dress shirt.
Imagine my surprise when I visited the current Burberry site a few weeks ago to replace this classically styled shirt and saw the ABSOLUTE JUNK they are purveying now . . . and at eye-watering prices that would make King Croesus wince, had he ever deigned to appear in such tawdry, juvenile garb.
Thomas Burberry invented gabardine fabric in 1879. Its light but tightly-woven, waterproof structure was meant to protect wearers from the inclement weather of the British Isles without the weight of the rubberized Mackintosh overcoat, invented a half-century earlier, in 1824. Gabardine was a hit, and Mr. Burberry patented the fabric in 1888.
Burberry went on to outfit the heroic explorer Ernest Shackleton on three of his voyages of discovery, including the disastrous but ultimately victorious expedition to the South Pole in 1914-1917, with not a single man of the crew of 27 lost.
Shackleton’s ship was appropriately named Endurance, something that current Burberry executives evidently know nothing whatsoever about. Today, Burberry has been overrun by fashionistas of the most feckless flavor, both in the C-suite and on the runway, subhuman creatures who were outdone in both breeding and character by Sir Ernest’s noble sled dogs.
There have been numerous recent stories in print and online about he fall of this once-great outfitter, including this recent one:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how...ns-biggest-fail-stock-drop-ceo-ousting-2024-8
The story linked above (worth reading) very correctly attributes Burberry’s decline to “a combination of too-high prices and too-high fashion.” The current offerings, for example, include a US$910 Cotton Formal Shirt (evidently the nearest thing today to my much-prized poplin but at nearly four times the cost) and a US$1290 Oversized Check Silk Shirt. Who in their right mind would pay these utterly obscene prices? Nobody, evidently, which is why Burberry is foundering — not “floundering,” as in flip-flopping like a flounder, but “foundering,” as in sinking under the waves.
The brand that once exemplified solid English quality is in danger of becoming a global laughing stock. A noxious surfeit of British, French and Italian fashion brands already produce flamboyant, tasteless “aspirational” (i.e., overpriced) Paris Fashion Week dross at prices no working human could possibly afford. Burberry, please come back to your good English-rooted senses!
I plan to hold a small, private memorial service for my defunct white Burberry poplin shirt and then bury it in a stoneware urn in my garden alongside the similar urn containing the ashes of my dear departed feline companion, Boo. You are invited to mourn with me.
Poplin is my preferred shirting material for the warm year-round weather here in Los Angeles, and this shirt was a favorite among my several white poplins and was worn in constant rotation. Consider me strange, but I develop strong attachments to my shirts.
After repeated wearing and washing, the shirt developed the inevitable frays in the collar and small tears around the cuff. Although I still wear it around the house for its comfort, it is no longer appropriate to be worn on any occasion that calls for a business or dress shirt.
Imagine my surprise when I visited the current Burberry site a few weeks ago to replace this classically styled shirt and saw the ABSOLUTE JUNK they are purveying now . . . and at eye-watering prices that would make King Croesus wince, had he ever deigned to appear in such tawdry, juvenile garb.
Thomas Burberry invented gabardine fabric in 1879. Its light but tightly-woven, waterproof structure was meant to protect wearers from the inclement weather of the British Isles without the weight of the rubberized Mackintosh overcoat, invented a half-century earlier, in 1824. Gabardine was a hit, and Mr. Burberry patented the fabric in 1888.
Burberry went on to outfit the heroic explorer Ernest Shackleton on three of his voyages of discovery, including the disastrous but ultimately victorious expedition to the South Pole in 1914-1917, with not a single man of the crew of 27 lost.
Shackleton’s ship was appropriately named Endurance, something that current Burberry executives evidently know nothing whatsoever about. Today, Burberry has been overrun by fashionistas of the most feckless flavor, both in the C-suite and on the runway, subhuman creatures who were outdone in both breeding and character by Sir Ernest’s noble sled dogs.
There have been numerous recent stories in print and online about he fall of this once-great outfitter, including this recent one:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how...ns-biggest-fail-stock-drop-ceo-ousting-2024-8
The story linked above (worth reading) very correctly attributes Burberry’s decline to “a combination of too-high prices and too-high fashion.” The current offerings, for example, include a US$910 Cotton Formal Shirt (evidently the nearest thing today to my much-prized poplin but at nearly four times the cost) and a US$1290 Oversized Check Silk Shirt. Who in their right mind would pay these utterly obscene prices? Nobody, evidently, which is why Burberry is foundering — not “floundering,” as in flip-flopping like a flounder, but “foundering,” as in sinking under the waves.
The brand that once exemplified solid English quality is in danger of becoming a global laughing stock. A noxious surfeit of British, French and Italian fashion brands already produce flamboyant, tasteless “aspirational” (i.e., overpriced) Paris Fashion Week dross at prices no working human could possibly afford. Burberry, please come back to your good English-rooted senses!
I plan to hold a small, private memorial service for my defunct white Burberry poplin shirt and then bury it in a stoneware urn in my garden alongside the similar urn containing the ashes of my dear departed feline companion, Boo. You are invited to mourn with me.
