This industry's take on Christopher Bailey's new role

Christopher Bailey was artistic from the start. During an interview with Co.Design, Angela Ahrendt recalls meeting him for the first time: “He was this young British guy who just started there. He was really cute, and God, he was so

talented.” Talent that blossomed into Bailey taking over as both chief creative director and CEO of Burberry, a standard almost unheard in the luxury fashion industry.

Bailey

dubbed cute and talented

Born into a creative family, he had a carpenter father and a visual merchandiser for a mother. It was thanks to his mother’s job at Marks & Spencer that he was able to frequent the samples sales and purchased his first Burberry coat. His passion for art and fashion caused him to pursue a degree in fashion, which inadvertently led to his first encounter with Ahdrent, former CEO at Burberry, while working for Donna Karan. For Bailey, moving to New York to work for the company was one of his ‘first big wake up calls’ to how crazy the fashion industry could be. After working at Donna Karan for two years, Bailey makes a career change and works for Gucci as senior women’s wear designer, which at the time was under the artistic directorship of Tom Ford. In 2001, Burberry’s previous CEO Rose Marie Bravo, asked Bailey to join the company. Then in 2009, the British designer was promoted to chief creative officer and began working alongside Ahrendt once more

Since joining Burberry, the company has seen a transformation and is now one of the leading digital luxury brands in the world. Vogue magazine wrote: “The quiet, boyish Bailey oversees a multibillion-dollar kingdom, and—in the span of a decade—has given the staid old gentleman of a house a walloping good shake.” According to global consultancy brand Interbrand, Burberry recorded the fastest growth in the past five years among luxury companies. Together, Bailey and Ahrendts not only were able to return the brand back to its British heritage, but also simultaneously were able to triple the company’s revenues to 1.87 billion pounds and earn a stock return of three hundred percent. In recent trading results, Burberry unveiled a total revenue boost of 14 percent to 1.03 billion pounds, in the six months to the end of September this year.

Bailey's new role as CEO comes as a shock

Despite all Bailey’s triumphs at Burberry, it still came as a surprise to the industry when Burberry announced that their chief creative director was to succeed Ahrendt as CEO. In a video announcement, Sir John Peace sat down with the two to discuss the succeeding of roles and Ahrendts new position at Apple. Bailey said he felt “incredibly humbled” to be offered this position after working as creative director for 13 years. He also shared his hopes to be able to “take that innovation, take that design and creative head and to marry it with the commerce side of our business to become more united.” Ahrendt called him “one of this generation’s greatest visionaries,” and concluded she had always known that the future of the company existed with Bailey at its helm.

However, not everyone in the fashion industry seems to share her enthusiasm for Bailey’s new role. When Burberry broke the news that Bailey would be replacing Ahrendt as CEO, stock prices fell 8.8 percent and company share prices have gone down by more than 7 percent. Isabel Cavill, senior retail analyst at Planet Retail, believes that Ahrendt’s departure, which occurred not very long after Stacey Cartwright, former chief financial officer, left the company in July had caused the series of ‘jitters’ on the stock market. She doubts Bailey’s ‘future performance’ without Ahrendts, comparing their relationship to that of Lennon and McCarthney, neither one being able to perform as well without the other.

Imran Amed, founder and editor of Business of Fashion wrote that it is ‘unprecedented for a designer to graduate from creative director to chief creative officer to chief executive officer,’ as Bailey has done. He asks if Bailey has what it takes to handle both roles and questions if Bailey ‘could be the Steve Jobs of fashion,’ to conclude that the stock market does not think so, following investment analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald as they lowered the forecast price. Founder and Managing Director of Luxury Recruit, Mohammed Mirza, believes that the ‘skill-set required to perform each functional area is very different,’ alongside that ‘the sheer work load of managing a businesses operations alongside its creative direction would be staggering.’ He mentions examples of successful partnerships between company’s CEO’s and creative directors, but finds it hard to think of a good example of a successful single individual person ‘running all aspects of a luxury goods business.’ Mirza concludes that it would be unfair to wrongly assume that because Bailey is creative he cannot work to his full potential in a CEO role, just that the work load and level of responsibility will be ‘hugely significant.’

But it was Burberry’s chief financial officer, Carol Fairweather, who was questioned during a conference call last week, who responded to the growing concerns surrounding the company’s new CEO. She pointed out that Bailey would be supported by a “world class team,” and been a key part of the growth the company has enjoyed over the past 13 years since his arrival. “There is no doubt Christopher can unlock Burberry’s next step of growth,” she concluded. She wasn’t alone when she backed Bailey up, as previous CEO at Burberry, Bravo, shared that she always thought that ‘Christopher was the Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren of his generation.’ She adds that he has the ‘intellectual capacity to grow and change’ as well as ‘the stamina and focus.’ Combined together, she concludes, Bailey has many skills that are necessary to be a successful CEO. Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for The New York Times, further supports these positive encouragements for Bailey’s new role. She believes that Bailey is the ‘most logical choice to lead Burberry,’ as he was the driving factor behind the digital media push that put the company ahead of its luxury brand competitors and turned Burberry into the brand it is today. Horyn also points out that Bailey, much unlike his predecessor Roberto Menichetti, refused to separate himself from the commercial side of the company and was always asking what were the best sellers.

Even though it may be a while before Christopher Bailey becomes a household name, he is already legendary at Burberry. Fflur Roberts, Global head of luxury Goods Research, says that there is a “renewed sense of positive momentum across the luxury industry,” and Burberry seems ready to use that positive momentum to take the brand to the next level. Now, with all eyes watching Bailey to see what will come next for this British luxury brand, one can only speculate what his next move will hold for the future.

Vivian Hendriksz