Time was, a Barbour meant one thing: the classic Beaufort model that stank of wax, wet dog, and had pockets stuffed with cartridges from a shoot. Naturally, the late Queen Elizabeth modelled it best, standing at Balmoral in hers with her trademark neckerchief. There is an apocryphal tale that, like all die-hard Barbour devotees, the Queen refused to buy a new one from the 1970s onwards, instead preferring to have hers re-waxed until it presumably fell apart in one of Prince Philip’s Land Rovers. Such was the genius of the Barbour brand, which acted as a sartorial shorthand for the make-do-and-mend postwar generation, evoking all sorts of British no-nonsense, pull-your-socks-up attitudes ever since its inception in 1894.
That the farmers’ protest is a disaster for Barbour and its fashion credentials is clear
But for all this cultural standing, the brand went rogue. In around 2019, it launched a collaboration with Alexa Chung, the Hampshire-born fashionista, which saw the brand leave the countryside and come to town. Suddenly, the likes of Sienna Miller and pop star Lily Allen were pictured wearing pristine Barbours around London with only a spangly dress underneath. Partnerships with zeitgeisty Scandi-brand Ganni (renowned for its bizarre, balloon-like clothes) and Gucci followed, and before you knew it, Barbour had very little to do with its actual customers. When I tried to buy a Beaufort Barbour four years ago, I had to search very hard before I found one languishing at the back of the concession, its newer relations – replete with multiple zips and waist ties designed to accentuate the female form – were out front and clear for all to see. Look at the brand’s website, and you will see much the same thing: Barbour sexed-up and cinched-in for a certain type of person. One London journalist told me, ‘Barbour has been desperately courting urban fashion magazines like i-D and Dazed, sending them freebies from their latest seasonal designs. The staff there all think it’s quite cringe.’
And yet, like all PR disasters, the strategy has come undone suddenly and breathtakingly. This week, farmers took to the streets of London to protest against Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax. Many were pictured wearing their Barbours, because what else would you wear in the pissing rain? High-profile farming advocate-cum-celebrity Jeremy Clarkson wasn’t wearing one, but Nigel Farage proudly wore his shirt and tie underneath, showing Rishi Sunak (who has been known to wear one himself) how it’s done. Taking to X, lefties have declared the Barbour ‘the new overt symbol for the right’ and ‘the new uniform for a new reign of terror’. The Daily Mail, enjoying every last minute of the fracas, declares the rise of ‘Barbour nationalism’.
That the farmers’ protest is a disaster for Barbour and its fashion credentials is clear; what could be worse than the take-up of the brand by the very customer the brand had hoped to divest itself of? But Barbour nationalism? The brand is not in the Hugo Boss realms of the Reich just yet, surely. The truth, I suspect, is far less inflammatory. The farming classes never stopped wearing their Barbours due to the cast-iron nature of the concept itself: if you make something that’s designed to last for 30 years, chances are you’ll still be wearing it when the political call to arms comes. Barbour will hardly be complaining about the increase in revenue – reported at £343 million even before the farmers’ protest in January – right-wing garb or not.
Perhaps the caveat, if there is one, lies in branding strategy, not revenue. When heritage British brands such as Hunter and Burberry court business away from their base, a kind of dissonance occurs at the level of brand recognition. Are Hunters for wearing at Glastonbury à la Sienna Miller, or are they for the country proper? The ubiquitous Chameau wellies seem to have replaced Hunter as the brand for the country set, proving that if it’s confusing, customers will just move on. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
From watching the dubiously awful Disney Plus documentary Vogue in the 90s, I learnt that preppy American brands such as Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger embraced their unlikely ghetto credentials by being nimble and deft, pivoting away from the base and towards something much larger. In Barbour’s case, the branding pivot will be interesting to behold. Will they reverse back to their base or cycle onwards in pursuit of customers new? Let’s hope it’s the former. As the French doyen of fashion philosophy, Roland Barthes, put it, ‘fashion never comes without a price’. Take note, Dame Margaret Barbour.
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