Ben Sherman: an interesting facelift

Facelifts – typically seen as essential for brands of some years’ standing and a little desperate for aging starlets. Ben Sherman has had a bit of a re-vamp – stylish white bags proclaiming them ‘The Original’ and an image that I am assuming began with a mood board celebrating Brit culture as original and creative. I have not visited the Carnaby Street flagship yet, but hear it looks stunning – clad throughout in metro tile chic. The staff (I hear) now sport bowler hats (a tailoring gent meets Droog reference?) and waxed moustaches. Ben Sherman was the mod / skinhead shop. It regained relevance during the geezer-tastic era of Britpop, (spookily now almost two decades ago.) Geezer-ville is a pretty straightforward place, not given to too much flounce. The re-fresh clearly draws on these roots and pumps up the theatricality. It’s probably going to make a bag more cash and ensure the brand’s ongoing ‘salience’. But I have to say it seems kind of odd, when genuine ‘authenticity’ is held by marketers, agencies and consumers as the holy grail, to see a brand that has such a quality producing a Disney-fied version of itself. All quite postmodern, or meta, but arguably akin to knocking over Shakespeare’s house to re-build a picture postcard mock Tudor cottage on the foundations, one more appealing to tourists. Still, I should wait to judge until I visit. Speaking of facelifts, we have had a little work done too – though we always swore we wouldn’t. A few months ago we asked for your views on the Gazette and as the cheesy line has it – ‘you talked, we listened’. Mostly you struggled with the white text out of black, so we have fixed it. This makes us look less distinctive and less jkr branded. But we are more legible – please forgive us our previous view that the brand was important enough to get in the way of the functionality, we all make mistakes. Also, you will see a search engine to the left – we have produced some 850 posts, so you might find stuff in the archive of interest. Let us know what you think. Even better, if you visit us regularly pass on the link to your circle – a healthy flow of traffic is the fuel that propels us onwards.