Latest news with #LisaArmstrong
Telegraph
14-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
It's going to take more than star power to save Burberry
While most of the UK is basking in unseasonably glorious sunshine this week, spare a thought for the folks at Burberry who appear to be facing an altogether more gloomy outlook. The luxury British fashion house is weathering yet another storm with the announcement yesterday of more financial losses and hundreds more job cuts. The company announced 1,700 jobs will go in the next two years in the wake of a £66 million loss in the year to April, compared with profit before tax of £383 million a year earlier. The house aims to save an extra £100 million by the end of the 2027 financial year, partly through cutting around 18 per cent of its global workforce. The results come in what is a tough period for fashion globally, with business and supply chain challenges amidst a worldwide luxury slowdown. 'These results are very disappointing,' says The Telegraph 's head of fashion, Lisa Armstrong, 'but every brand is going through a hard time at the moment, even houses like Chanel are not having the stellar growth that they were post-pandemic when so many brands were growing unsustainably.' Yesterday's bad results are just the latest in a long line of strong financial headwinds battering the London-listed business. The British heritage brand, founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry to make outdoor clothing for the military, is something of a bellwether for British luxury, but has struggled to find its north star in recent years with sharp revenue decline. Less than a year earlier in July 2024, more poor results saw off then-chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd who departed from the brand after only two years with immediate effect, to be replaced by Joshua Schulman, a Los Angeles native and former boss of American superbrands Coach and Michael Kors. There were cuts announced then too, 400 office jobs at the brand's UK headquarters. 'Akeroyd's departure last summer really shook the team,' a brand insider tells The Telegraph. 'And the fact it happened with immediate effect… We did not see that coming, and it rattled and destabilised everyone, including (creative director) Daniel Lee, who had been brought into the house by him.' Indeed Lee, originally from Yorkshire, had arrived at the beleaguered house in 2023 following a star turn at Bottega Veneta, to take over from Italian designer Riccardo Tisci who, critics argued, had failed to capitalise on Burberry's British heritage during his five-year tenure. (Tisci has subsequently been accused of sexually assaulting a man in New York in June 2024, allegations he denies). Lee did not have the easiest start at the house, with several poorly received collections fuelling rumours about his future in the months after he arrived. The brand's autumn/winter 2025 collection, shown in February, felt like a sea-change. 'Creative Director Daniel Lee put his best foot forward with a very British take on cosy opulence,' said The Telegraph 's acting fashion director Sarah Bailey of the collection at the time. 'It wasn't a revolution, but a purposeful stride in the right direction… There was a confidence and a conviction in this collection that seemed to blow the mist of doubt away.' Lee himself has previously said that he thinks 'Burberry should appeal to everybody, from the street to the Royal family' and under Schulman, the label continues to seek to exploit its quintessential Britishness, notably around celebrities, with whom the brand still has phenomenal pulling power, consistently boasting London's flashiest front row at its bi-annual fashion shows. This February, actors Richard E Grant, Lesley Manville and Jason Isaacs all walked the runway and the much-photographed Peltz-Beckhams were amongst the crowd in the front row (wearing matchy-matchy plaid). Then there are the high-profile advertising campaigns, the latest in celebration of Burberry's relationship with Highgrove Gardens, features stars including actors Elizabeth McGovern, Laura Carmichael and Sope Dirisu. A foray into art is on the cards, too. In March it was announced the Victoria and Albert Museum had partnered with the house to rebrand the Fashion Gallery as The Burberry Gallery in 2027. Earlier this month, the label enlisted stylist du jour Law Roach (of Ariana Grande and Zendaya fame) to host a table at the prestigious Met Gala at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and dressed Roach, alongside his guests – actors Angela Bassett, Jodie Turner-Smith and singer Cardi B amongst them – for the red carpet. If these events win plaudits from the fashion press and on social media, they are not yet, it seems, translating to cold hard cash. The house may be determined to capitalise on their unique selling point of being the only British luxury fashion house, but customers appear confused about what 'Britishness' even is in 2025 – tea, cake and weather clichés aside. How to evoke Burberry's long and storied history (the quintessential trench was patented in 1912) without being defined by it? How to walk the line between cliché and cool – and moreover, convince an increasingly financially constrained global marketplace to invest thousands of pounds in it (one of the brand's iconic Gabardine trenchcoats now costs £1990, a merino wool, jacquard knit cardigan, £950)? While the house says their problems have been compounded by the 2021 decision to withdraw the VAT refund scheme for overseas visitors shopping in the UK and an unpredictable US market under President Trump's tariff threats, there is a bigger brand identity problem which echoes through into the beauty space where Burberry has been under licence to Coty, an American multinational beauty company, since 2017. 'There was such a buzz about Burberry beauty when it launched in 2010, because it was the first big-time British fashion house to launch a beauty range,' says one source in the industry. 'The products were innovative and the packaging had real make-up bag appeal. Sadly it doesn't feel like the same brand anymore – there are hardly any new launches and the products they dolaunch are just cookie-cutter versions of what is already out in the market. This is what often happens when a big corporate company takes ownership of a cool brand: it loses its magic completely.' 'I think Burberry is on the right track now with Daniel Lee,' says Armstrong. 'It's just very important that Burberry deliver great outerwear, good bags and good knitwear. They don't need to do anything else. But they should stop trying to be ultra cool – this is a mistake so many houses make. Cool is a tiny market, and the venn diagram where cool intersects with money is even smaller.' But if there is a year for Burberry to restore and reinvent their 'Cool Britannia' image, perhaps it is this, with the house's signature check rehabilitated and once again enjoying cult status on swimwear, streetwear and accessories, and a Nineties redux taking place in popular culture (Oasis reunion tour anyone?). Charlie Huggins, shares portfolio manager at high-net-worth investment service Wealth Club, says a turnaround can't come soon enough, describing the last financial year as an ' annus horribilis for Burberry.' 'Almost everything that could go wrong did,' Huggins says. And while he believes that the house's turnaround plan could tackle key issues, he cautions 'investors have seen several failed turnaround plans from Burberry in recent years. This one feels like a last chance saloon.'
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Ant McPartlin's ex-wife Lisa Armstrong 'splashes out on third home with £31m divorce payout'
Lisa Armstrong has reportedly bought a new house in Oxford as she builds an impressive property portfolio in the wake of her divorce from Ant McPartlin. The makeup artist, 48, who was said to have been awarded £31 million in a settlement from the TV star, 49, snapped up a four-bed house near Oxford last year for more than £700,000, according to The Mirror. She already has the former family home, a £2.3 million five-bedroom west London mansion, which she kept as part of the divorce. Lisa then bought a £3.8 million house in West London in 2020, two years following her split from Ant after 11 years of marriage. According to the publication, she is now expected to undertake extensive renovations of her latest purchase. It is not known if she is set to live there, but she grew up in Oxford and knows the area well. MailOnline has contacted a representative of Lisa for comment. Lisa is fast becoming a savvy property developer after completely renovating her 2020 house purchase, installing a pool, a gym, an outhouse and a gazebo. However, she has had less luck with the former marital home after it suffered a fire in 2023, causing £1 million worth of damage. Lisa had been renting the property to a family of six, it was reported at the time. Lisa split from I'm A Celeb host Ant, 49, in 2018 after 18 years of marriage. The presenter went on to marry his former personal assistant, Anne-Marie Corbett, in 2021, and the pair welcomed their first child together, son Wilder Patrick McPartlin, in May. Lisa then went on to date Sky electrician James Green in 2020, but their split came 'out of the blue' in August 2023. Speaking at the time a friend said that the end of their three-year relationship had been amicable and that the former couple would remain friends. The source said: 'I don't really know what has gone wrong. The two of them were only on a swanky holiday together in the Caribbean or somewhere about eight weeks ago. 'He was with her one day, and he just wasn't with her the next day. There was no inkling that anything was wrong.' Lisa started dating father-of-two James in 2020 when he was estranged from his wife Kirsty after moving out of their marital home in Hampshire. He helped her find love again after her split in 2018 from her husband, Ant, famed for his double act with co-presenter Dec Donnelly. Lisa, who married Ant in 2006, was reported in January 2020 to have received £31m as part of a divorce settlement with her famous Geordie ex-husband. But she took to Twitter to dismiss the claims, posting a message saying: 'Nope a load of nonsense AGAIN….' In January, she took their five-bedroom west London mansion off the market after it had been on the market for just under a year. The property is no longer on Rightmove, with a message reading that it has been 'removed by the agent' rather than sold. The Strictly Come Dancing make-up artist slashed £250,000 off the asking price of the home she previously shared with Ant back in August 2024. She placed the fire-ravaged place up for sale for £4 million in May 2024 but had to drop the price just three months later after it failed to excite buyers. The divorced couple, who split in 2018, bought the property, which is on an exclusive street in Chiswick, for £2.3 million in 2006.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Amid the £100,000 outfits at Chanel, this affordable luxury stood out
With all the hand-sewn beading and delicate-as-eyelashes tulle involved in their making, some of these Chanel evening dresses won't leave much change from £200,000. Even those tasteful little satin co-respondent wedge shoes will probably top out at around £1,200. This is couture week and its purpose is categorically not to be relatable. And yet… In a tough economic market – when even the super-rich have proved resistant to some of the more audacious price rises that the luxury brands say they have been forced to implement by the increased costs of raw materials – relatability, or a modicum of it, was exactly what Chanel served up in Paris on Monday. Lisa Armstrong All but five of its 55 looks featured models in a shade of Chanel matte-red lipstick, each customised to suit the models' individual skin tones. Chanel produces many reds – yours for around £32 and for many, an affordable luxury they're happy to fork out for. For the show, as many as three shades were blended together. While the black models wore paler colours, this was a demonstration of the universality of red: from blondes and redheads to brunettes, Indian and East Asian skins, there was a red to suit. But this seemed more than a lesson in make-up application. It's also a demonstration of the mighty economic firepower of beauty products. There's barely a high-luxury fashion label in Europe and the US that hasn't seen a torpid performance in sales of its clothes in the past 18 months. Even bags are proving a harder sell. To that point, there were no bags in this show – and that in itself is noteworthy. This is a house with a seemingly endless pipeline of infinite variations on its beloved quilted 2.55 gold chained bag (which was first launched in 1955) which it loves to send down the catwalk. Those natty tweed suits are normally accompanied by multiple jaunty bags, often several on one outfit. The Chanel bag's fertility rate is vigorous. But nor were there necklaces, earrings, hair accessories or any other iterations of Chanel's other signature – pearl jewellery. Not that the clothes didn't speak for themselves. Chanel's long-awaited new designer, Matthieu Blazy, will show his first collection in September. Until then, the anonymous Chanel team continues, most impressively, to hold the fort. This was a skillful, light-handed (if necessarily labour-intensive) display of all Chanel's strengths: bantam-weight tweeds, whispery fine chiffons and silks, sometimes bonded together in a single dress or jumpsuit. Hemlines were mainly above the knee. Shorts abounded – which will do nothing to move the dial. You either love shorts and already wear them in summer, or you don't. The suits with bright silk linings and collars looked fresh, and the evening dresses were ethereal without looking tweedy. Delightful for the 0.001 percent. By the way, if you're thinking Chanel missed a trick in not somehow acknowledging its most commercial product of all, Chanel No. 5, on the catwalk – a bottle was in each of the audience's goody bag.
