What this shirt exposes about the corrupt world of fashion
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The Burberry Prorsum shirt on the catwalk. It's made from silk crepe and costs £495
Snap! By rights, it should be the worst fashion faux pas you could ever commit.
To appear in public in an instantly recognisable outfit that has already been worn by everyone else. And I mean everyone else.
So it’s curious that so many famous men and women have chosen en masse, like crazed label-loving lemmings, to wear a heart-print shirt by Burberry Prorsum, a garment that first appeared on the London catwalk in February this year.
Victoria Beckham wore hers — white hearts on brown — earlier this month en route to New York Fashion Week.
One Direction’s Harry Styles wore his — white hearts on blue — at his birthday party in February and the black version to the premiere of his new movie a month ago.
And just last week, Donna Air wore hers to a high profile charity auction attended by Prince William and Prince Harry, ensuring the shirt got maximum publicity.
Lily Collins, actress and daughter of Phil Collins, modelled her white hearts on a black shirt in July, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wore a heart print mac this month in a Japanese magazine.
The heart motif also comes on a pair of hot pants, as seen on singer Rita Ora in July and TV presenter Caroline Flack in August.
And as London Fashion Week rolls on with its usual bang, you can bet your bottom dollar more than one celebrity or fashionista will be seen at the shows modelling something with this distinctive heart shape emblazoned on it.
Now, of course, all these fashion movers and shakers could have tapped into the same trend and decided they simply could not live without a heart-shaped print.
The shirt, from the autumn/winter collection, is made from silk crepe, has a rubberised PVC collar and costs £495 (an awful lot of money for something that’s so ubiquitous).
While it went on sale officially only last month, it has sold out. Don’t despair, though, as you can still buy the heart print on gloves and bags too.
LOOKS FAMILIAR: Harry Styles (left) wore his Burberry Prorsum at his birthday party in February; Victoria Beckham (right) wore hers earlier this month on route to New York Fashion Week
Which makes me wonder whether the sudden mania for this print was not all part of some cleverly orchestrated marketing campaign, designed to give Burberry back some of its cachet, its cool factor — given that, of late, it became so bling in its desire to appeal to the Chinese and Russians that it was in grave danger of losing its ‘fashionista’ appeal.
When I asked Burberry whether or not the garments had been given to the likes of Victoria Beckham and the One Direction star, they declined to comment. But according to sources at Syco, One Direction’s record label, Harry’s Burberry shirts were indeed gifts.
The shirt was sent to Victoria, free of charge, too. That is just the way the cookie crumbles, although we all know these people never eat carbs.
Anyone who has worked in fashion knows that the elaborate dance — or romance, if you will — of ‘gifting’ stars, fashion editors and stylists is commonplace. Burberry has gifted very generously over the years.
When the brand showed its collection in a tent in Milan, I remember sitting a couple of rows from the front when Peta anti-fur protesters stormed the catwalk.
As the young women were dragged off by the hair, the fashion press and celebrities in the front row, each with a Burberry tote at their feet, applauded.
It was sickening, how easily everyone had been bought. Indeed, both Harry Styles and Victoria Beckham are well known for their love of a good freebie.
When Victoria lost her luggage at Heathrow, her stylist called Dolce & Gabbana and asked if they could ‘help’, which of course they did, rushing a complete wardrobe of new clothes to her home, completely free of charge.
And One Direction’s management company has long lost count of the bags of designer clothes and jewellery that arrive at their offices every day, in the hope one of the boys might wear them.
When I was editor of Marie Claire ten years ago, I was inundated with free designer bags, clothes, spa treatments and even a holiday on a yacht off Capri.
I received a Louis Vuitton traveller worth £1,700, with LJ on the handle, embossed in gold. At first, I thought they’d made a spelling mistake with their logo, until I realised LJ was me.
The surprise is that gifting continues now, despite a recession, and with many brands losing sales. In fact, it has increased exponentially.
Last week, Donna Air wore her Burberry Prorsum shirt to a high profile charity auction
‘You can see the rise in the importance of celebrity endorsement from the number of celebrity relations managers employed by fashion brands these days,’ says Antony Waller, brand manager of London fashion label Bora Aksu.
‘I would say most brands are doing it and most celebrities expect it.’
The newest practice is known in the business as ‘paying for tweets’: a star, or even a fashion blogger, will get a freebie in exchange for posting a picture of themselves wearing the gift.
As one celebrity liaison officer told me, ‘A Kim Kardashian can reach millions with just one tweet.’
The most cachet comes when a Middleton sister wears your brand.
While Kate does not accept freebies, her sister and mother have no such qualms, just look at the £195 Modalu bags they received free of charge earlier this year.
In fact, of all the brand VIP managers I spoke to, they could think of only one star who always turns down a free gift, and suggests it be given in her name to a charity instead: Cameron Diaz.
And if you think it’s just the luxury Italian fashion houses that gift, think again. In the past two weeks, in the run up to London Fashion Week, I have been festooned with freebies.
Shall I reel them off, Generation-Game fashion? Let’s start with: a black tuxedo, a grey cashmere sweater, a pencil skirt, a cream silk shirt and a leopard print tote, all from Marks & Spencer.
When I queried it, I was told it was hoped I would rock up in M&S at this weekend’s fashion shows.
I was sent a green silk shirt by Banana Republic, beauty products from YSL, navy cashmere and Clarins products from John Lewis and, in the last few minutes, a designer who is showing in London on Monday has sent me this email: ‘Pick whatever you would like to wear from our website, and my office will send it to you in time for Monday’s show.’
Gifting so the fashion press will turn up to your event is now expected. High Street brands put on ‘press days’ to show their wares to journalists, and when you leave you get a goody bag.
Glossy magazine writers are now so spoilt that they often just drop the goody bags in bins on the way out to demonstrate how ‘high end’ they are.
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At a lunch hosted by Tamara Mellon for Jimmy Choo in LA, $50 vouchers for her shoes were left on every plate.
The young lingerie designer sat next to me said, ‘Do you want mine? I only ever wear Louboutins’. It’s all so ghastly.
But challenge any one of these brands about their gifting policies, and you are met with denial. Mulberry, who had a star-studded line up for the show at Claridge’s ballroom, always deny gifting people to carry and wear their wares, or to turn up to the show.
Their spokeswoman insists Alexa Chung — whose eponymous Mulberry bag has long been the label’s biggest seller and who appears not just on the front row but at all the brand’s parties — is not paid to be a fan.
I can’t help but find this hard to believe, given Chung’s demand for £400,000 to be part of a campaign for a brand at Debenhams.
And take Versace. When I dared, some years ago, to suggest that the singer Prince had been flown to the show to sit front row, and put up in a room at the Ritz, the label’s PR company came down like a ton of bricks and barred me from all future shows.
But Noel Gallagher’s ex-wife, the designer Meg Mathews, told a newspaper recently about her experience with the Italian designer in 1997: ‘They sent a private jet and when I got to Milan I didn’t even have to walk through customs.
'I stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel and there was a dressmaker in my room with a rail of clothes.
'They usually give you stuff to wear — if you look at pictures of the front row now, people are all wearing clothes by the designer they’re watching.’
But is all this gifting necessarily a bad thing? Does it matter if a few designers like to feel generous, and to see their clothes on beautiful women (Giorgio Armani reportedly offered half a million pounds to actress Jessica Chastain to wear his gown to the Oscars).
I believe gifting to the fashion press is verging on bribery. It skews the opinion of the very people who should be critics and taste-makers. Their job should be steering shoppers towards quality and value for money. Nothing I write is ever influenced by anything I receive or don’t receive. I tell people I don’t want gifts but you can’t stop them, so I give them to charity.
Gifting happens in the beauty industry, too. A free trip to Paris for a perfume or skincare launch, say, is all too often directly translated into column inches.
Ever wondered why a frankly awful Stella McCartney fashion show, presenting her autumn and winter designs in February’s London Fashion Week, received universally rave reviews? (Not from me, I hasten to add.) She sent a package of unguents and scent from her new L.I.L.Y range to every ‘attendee’ the morning after, with a hand-written note saying ‘thank you’.
It’s a conspiracy, a pact, which means no one ever puts a list of freebies, thanks very much, at the end of a rave review. Because that would break the spell.
Don’t forget, too, that gifting must surely push up prices for the woman on the street who will not only never be sent a freebie, but is not even in possession of a discount card.
For example, I get 20 per cent off at M&S, 25 per cent off at Net A Porter, 40 per cent off at Topshop … but I’m always really open about it.
Even more galling is the fact that gifting is far more seductive than paying a star to front a new ad campaign, where the contract is clear, and everyone knows money changed hands.
If young women see their idol (and it’s so hard to avoid these images, given the posting of ‘selfies’ on Instagram and Twitter) wearing something off-duty purportedly simply because they love it, then they will want that piece of clothing, too.
It has the stamp of approval, of being ‘a must-have’ and an ‘investment piece’ and all those other stupid words we fashion writers bandy about to make you part with your cash.
Fashion is an industry built on lies, we know it is — an airbrushed world that is forever young, where nothing is too expensive, where we all deserve what we don’t really need.
It’s just a shame that the famous men and women who claim to love all this stuff never seem to put their hands in their (Burberry heart print) wallets.
Additional reporting: Alison Boshoff
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