Burberry Brand History: From Raincoat to Luxury Icon

When a 21-year-old draper named Thomas Burberry opened a small shop in Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 1835, he was not thinking about red-carpet fashion. He was thinking about weather. That obsession with protecting people from rain and cold would eventually build one of the most recognized luxury labels on earth, and it explains why a fabric invented in the 1870s still shapes what the brand sells today.

The Burberry story is a case study in how technical innovation becomes cultural identity. A waterproof cloth made for farmers and soldiers turned into a coat worn by explorers, then officers, then film stars, and finally into a global symbol of British style. Along the way, the company made smart moves and serious mistakes, and both are part of the record.

The Founding Years: A Draper With a Weather Problem

Thomas Burberry’s early business was an ordinary outfitter’s shop. What separated him from competitors was a practical question: could clothing be both waterproof and breathable? The rubberized coats of the era kept rain out but trapped sweat inside, which made them miserable to wear for long periods.

His answer arrived in 1879, when he developed gabardine, a tightly woven cotton fabric treated so that it shed water while still allowing air to pass through. The name comes from gabardina, an old term for a loose cloak, and the weave itself is the secret: yarns are packed so densely that raindrops cannot easily penetrate, yet the cloth stays light.

This was not a fashion breakthrough. It was a textile engineering one, and it gave the young company a product with a genuine functional advantage. Farmers, sportsmen, and travelers bought it because it worked.

How the Trench Coat Became the Brand’s Signature

The garment most people associate with Burberry has a messy, contested origin story. In 1895, the company designed a coat for British officers, and the general design evolved through the following two decades. The name trench coat is popularly tied to World War I, when officers in the trenches wore belted, weatherproof coats with epaulettes, D-rings, and storm flaps.

Fashion historians are careful here. The claim that Burberry “invented the trench coat for World War I” is marketing shorthand. The design predates the war, and the specific features are often attributed to military adaptation rather than a single moment of invention. In 1914, the company was commissioned to adapt its coat for military use, and that period cemented the association.

What is not disputed is the cultural effect. The coat moved from the battlefield to civilian wardrobes, and its details, from the gun flap to the throat latch, became shorthand for practical elegance. Anyone who has compared modern trench styles will notice how little the core silhouette has changed in a century. If you want to understand how garment details carry meaning, the way hair clips: types, materials and how to choose evolved from utility to style follows a similar pattern.

Explorers, Aviators, and the Selling of Adventure

Burberry’s reputation was built on more than fabric. The company understood that credibility travels through stories. In 1911, Roald Amundsen’s expedition reached the South Pole, and in 1914, Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition set out for the Antarctic. Both are associated with Burberry outerwear, though the Shackleton link is far better documented than the Amundsen one. Sources on the Amundsen connection are thinner, so treat that claim with caution. (Burberry)

The pattern was clear: if the clothing could survive polar conditions, it could survive a commute. That logic powered decades of marketing. The brand also dressed early aviators and mountaineers, positioning itself at the intersection of British grit and technical capability.

A word of practical advice for anyone researching heritage brands: company histories tend to smooth over uncertainty. When a brand says it “equipped” an expedition, the honest version is often “supplied some garments to some members.” That distinction matters if you are writing about brand history or evaluating claims in a marketing campaign. The same skepticism applies to modern brand storytelling, which is why building meaningful brand worlds requires evidence, not narrative alone.

The Check: From Lining to Global Symbol

In 1924, the brand introduced its check pattern as a lining inside trench coats. The beige, black, red, and white plaid was originally a hidden detail, a small surprise when a coat was opened. Over time it migrated outward, first to scarves and accessories, then to almost everything.

That migration created both value and risk. The check became instantly recognizable, which is a marketer’s dream. But by the 1990s and early 2000s, it was also heavily licensed and widely counterfeited. The pattern appeared on caps worn by football fans and on knockoff goods sold in street markets, and the luxury signal weakened.

The lesson is a standard one in brand management: ubiquity and exclusivity pull in opposite directions. Licensing can generate short-term revenue while quietly eroding the premium positioning that made the licensing valuable in the first place. The company later pulled back, tightened distribution, and re-centered the check as a controlled signature rather than a free-for-all.

The Equestrian Knight and the Prorsum Motto

The Equestrian Knight logo, registered around 1901, shows a mounted knight carrying a shield and a banner bearing the Latin word Prorsum, meaning “forwards.” The registration date is commonly cited as 1901, though exact registration details are worth checking against primary records.

The logo is a useful reminder that heraldic imagery in fashion is rarely decorative. It signals heritage, permanence, and a certain kind of British institutional confidence. When the company later named a design line “Prorsum,” it was borrowing that same forward-looking language to signal creative ambition.

Royal Warrants and the Machinery of Prestige

In 1955, the brand received a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II. Royal Warrants are granted to companies that supply goods to the royal household, and they function as a third-party credibility marker that money cannot simply buy.

Dates around Royal Warrants are a common source of confusion. Different monarchs granted warrants at different times, and secondary sources often conflict. If precision matters for your purposes, the Royal Warrant Holders Association is the body that maintains the official record, and it is the source to check rather than a brand’s own timeline.

Leadership, Crisis, and Reinvention

The modern era of the company is a story of professional management layered onto a family-founded business.

Period	Leader	Defining Move
2006–2014	Angela Ahrendts	Digital expansion, retail overhaul, doubled revenue
2014–2017	Christopher Bailey	Creative-led consolidation, merged CEO and designer roles
2018 onward	Marco Gobbetti	Repositioning toward higher-end luxury, reduced discounting

Angela Ahrendts became CEO in 2006 and left in 2014 for Apple. She is widely credited with modernizing the brand’s digital presence and rationalizing its product range. Christopher Bailey, who had been the creative force, took over as CEO in 2014 before Marco Gobbetti arrived in 2018.

The most revealing episode came in 2018, when the company announced it would stop destroying unsold stock after facing criticism. Burning excess inventory is a common practice in luxury because it protects exclusivity and prevents discounted goods from flooding secondary markets. It is also environmentally indefensible in an era of climate scrutiny. The policy change was a genuine corporate shift, and it illustrates how sustainability pressure has reshaped luxury operations.

For anyone studying how luxury houses balance exclusivity with ethics, the parallels with watchmaking are instructive. The Voozon luxury section on watches, brands and design covers similar tensions between scarcity, pricing power, and reputation.

What the Brand Actually Sells Today

Strip away the heritage marketing and Burberry sells three things: outerwear, pattern recognition, and British identity. Outerwear remains the core, with the trench coat and quilted jackets doing most of the heavy lifting. The check provides instant visual identification. And the British association, however loosely defined, gives the brand a story that competitors cannot simply copy.

That combination is fragile in specific ways. When a brand leans on heritage, it risks looking dated. When it chases trends, it risks losing the codes that made it distinctive. The company has cycled through both mistakes. The periods when it drifted toward mass-market appeal coincided with weaker pricing power; the periods when it doubled down on outerwear and craft coincided with recovery.

There is a practical takeaway here for anyone building or evaluating a brand. Distinctive assets, like a check pattern or a coat silhouette, compound in value only if they are used consistently and protected fiercely. For a broader look at how brands construct these worlds, brand stories, profiles and reviews offer useful comparisons across categories.

Common Misconceptions Worth Correcting

A few claims circulate so widely that they deserve correction.

The trench coat was not invented in a single flash of genius during World War I. Its design evolved from 1895 onward, and military use accelerated rather than created it. The gabardine invention date of 1879 is company lore with limited independent verification. The Amundsen association is weaker than the Shackleton one. And the “invented waterproof fabric” framing ignores the many textile innovators working on similar problems in the same period.

None of this diminishes the achievement. It simply replaces myth with a more interesting reality: a business that succeeded through iteration, smart positioning, and a willingness to attach itself to the right adventures.

Conclusion

Burberry’s history is a long argument for the value of solving a real problem well. Thomas Burberry started with a weather problem, solved it with gabardine, and built a company that turned a functional coat into a cultural object. The check pattern, the Equestrian Knight, the Royal Warrant, and the explorer associations all reinforced one another over more than a century.

The brand has also shown how easily that equity can be diluted. Licensing excess, counterfeiting, and inventory destruction each damaged something the company could not simply buy back. Its recovery came from discipline: narrowing the product range, raising the price architecture, and reasserting outerwear as the center of gravity.

For readers, the useful lesson is about durability. Products that solve genuine problems tend to outlast marketing cycles. Brands that protect their distinctive assets, and resist the temptation to monetize them too aggressively, tend to keep their pricing power. Burberry is still writing that story, one coat at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Burberry founded?

Thomas Burberry opened his draper’s shop in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, in 1835, at age 21. The company’s modern corporate identity, however, took shape decades later with the development of gabardine in 1879.

Did Burberry invent the trench coat?

Not in the strict sense. The company designed a coat for British officers in 1895, and the design evolved through 1914, when it was adapted for military use. The name “trench coat” is tied to World War I, but the garment predates the conflict. The claim that it was invented for the trenches is a simplification.

What is gabardine and why does it matter?

Gabardine is a tightly woven cotton fabric that resists rain while allowing air to pass through. Developed around 1879, it was the technical foundation of the business. Unlike rubberized coats, gabardine did not trap sweat, which made it practical for outdoor work, travel, and exploration.

What does the Prorsum motto mean?

Prorsum is Latin for “forwards.” It appears on the Equestrian Knight logo, registered around 1901, and it later gave its name to a design line. The word signals movement and modernity, which is a deliberate contrast to the brand’s heritage imagery.

Why did Burberry stop destroying unsold products?

In 2018, the company announced it would stop destroying unsold stock after criticism from environmental groups and the media. Burning excess inventory is common in luxury because it protects exclusivity, but the practice became untenable as sustainability concerns grew.

Is the Burberry check still protected?

The check pattern remains one of the most recognizable trademarks in fashion, introduced as a coat lining in 1924. The company has fought extensive counterfeiting and, at times, over-licensed the pattern, which weakened its luxury signal before tighter controls were restored.