Fashion fusion

British brand Burberry is known for its classic style, but it's not afraid to stay abreast of the tech trends, Tiffany Tan reports.

Burberry is one brand that's proud to be a paradox. The British label is best known for its trench coat that was developed at the turn of the 20th century, yet it is now the fashion world's leader in digital innovation.

It has allowed fashionistas to order clothes straight from the runway via its website-several months before the pieces appear in stores. It has enabled shoppers to customize their trench coats online, where they choose details such as the cuff design, lining material and button type.

It created a photo-sharing site showing people in their trench coats, partnered with Apple to produce catwalk videos shot with an iPhone 5s and collaborated with Google so people could send each other virtual kisses. At the same time, it continued to expand its reach on social media.

In April, the luxury label debuted in Shanghai its latest flagship store and its biggest outside London. The store, located at the Jing'an Kerry Center, boasts of "magic mirrors" in the men's and women's dressing rooms-secondary mirrors that turn into screens, presenting photos and videos related to the clothes shoppers try on.

The garments contain radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which communicate with electronic readers to trigger the media presentations. Customers might see a model showing off the outfit they're holding, a close-up shot of its details, scenes from a runway show, general London scenery or a combination of these.

The three-floor store also houses Burberry's first dedicated beauty section in China, featuring the brand's makeup and perfume lines. Its first floor main hall has a huge screen that can live-stream fashion shows, as has been done at other stores worldwide. The area also doubles as a venue for cultural events, such as music performances.

The store's look and feel, inspired by the label's global flagship at 121 Regent Street in London, reflects Burberry's redefinition of itself as a "young old" brand. It was founded in Hampshire, England, in 1856 and gained early fame by outfitting polar explorers, aviators and British soldiers.

"We decided that we also wanted to talk to a younger generation," Christopher Bailey, the label's chief creative officer, who this month also took on the role of CEO, says in an exclusive interview with China Daily ahead of the Shanghai store's launch.

"Digital is a younger generation's language. Social is a younger person's language. So it was important for us to creatively innovate on those different channels."

Technology, Bailey says, aids in shaping customers' experience with a brand. It also helps tell the story behind a product, as well as integrating physical and digital information.

In 2013, for the third year in a row, Burberry bagged the top stop in L2 think tank's Digital IQ ranking for fashion brands. (Gucci and Ralph Lauren round out the top three on the latest list.) The New York group's annual survey evaluates the effectiveness of a brand's site, its digital marketing strategy, mobile experience and social media presence.

"Burberry has proven unique in its ability to identify areas of untapped return on investment and invest accordingly," Colin Gilbert, research director at L2, says. "Innovation has become part of the brand's DNA."

It was among the first fashion brands, Gilbert says, to reduce its focus on social media fan acquisition in favor of enhanced customer service online, such as live chat, call me back and collect products in store. This step allowed it "to replicate its first-mover advantage across other aspects of digital while preserving its leadership in the social media arena".

In China, it was one of the first to open a Sina Weibo micro blog account "when all the rest of the premium and luxury Western brands didn't know what this platform was about", says Marivi Avalos Monarrez, chief marketing officer and Asia managing director for Fashionbi, a fashion market research and analysis group.

After the Jing'an Kerry Center store's launch-which featured a theater-like fashion show attended by foreign and Chinese celebrities-Burberry's posts about the event fetched 319,000 likes on Instagram, 38,000 likes on Facebook and 5,000 shares on Weibo, according to Fashionbi.

Last month, Burberry also opened an online store on Alibaba Group's Tmall, even as other high-end brands have closed their stores on the e-commerce site. Tmall is one of China's biggest platforms for online retailers, but it is also associated with discounts and cheap products.

Burberry says what is crucial is a brand's content, rather than the medium it uses.

"Lots of people have that opinion of, 'You shouldn't really do a luxury brand on the Internet'," Bailey says in the interview in Shanghai. "I just don't see the world in that way.

"It's not the platform. It's what you do ... You have to set yourself apart and you have to have a point of view."

Burberry's is to be both old and young, to marry its 19th-century British heritage with 21st-century digital technology.

Contact the writer at tiffany@chinadaily.com.cn