Burberry: Art of the Trench

Burberry recently created a website celebrating the history and heritage of the classic trench coat. The main focus of the website is to interact the customers with the company by allowing them to submit photographs of themselves wearing the trench coats. Burberry features the best photographs on the website, for the world to see. The website acts as a living document of the trench.

Art of the Trench gives the history of the company and more specifically the trench coat. Thomas Burberry founded Burberry in 1891. The first store was located in London. Most of the trench coats were and are to this day made out of the textile Gabardine. This material is what allows the coats to be great in the wet weather. The website walks through the entire history of the trench coat starting in the 1900s and ending in the 2000s.

Scott Schuman, photographer and creator of the blog The Sartorialist, is the most recent photographer to collaborate with Burberry. His job was to travel around the world, including cities such as London, Milan, New York, Paris, Berlin, San Paulo, Venice, and photograph anyone he saw wearing a Burberry trench coat. The point was to capture real people in their everyday world, featuring the Burberry trench.

I first heard of Art of the Trench from The Sartorialist (Schuman’s blog) and immediately checked it out. I think it is a fantastic way to involve the customers and fans. It really shows how fashion can be a form of art. It provides many examples of how to wear the trench coat for people who already own one and for people who don’t own one; it encourages them to buy one. The website is very interactive, allowing browsers to narrow their search according to gender, color, weather and styling.

I think Burberry will see a lot of success from this website, and am thrilled to see the combination of fashion and art through an online source.

http://artofthetrench.com/#