Greg Stogdon is the Vice President, Creative Media at Burberry; Director of Creative Services at Burberry. We were Lucky enough to have Si Beales organise a Q & A with the man himself to give us students of Fashion Communication and Promotion an insight to the company's workings and how he managed to reach where he is today in his career being a former Fashion Communication and Promotion student himself at St. Martins.
Firstly I wasn't expecting his temperament to be as it was, I was expecting a more formal, even intimidating character due his position being so high in such a prestigious designer brand, however I found him to be humorous, down to earth and insightful.
Burberry was founded in 1856 and is very much so a heritage brand who centre their ethos around how the company started - designing and manufacturing trench coats. Greg explained that Burberry own the process right from the cotton seed to the making of the Trench in Yorkshire. He also expressed how the company is very organic with their approach and promotion strategy's, they rarely look at what other company's are doing but instead gather inspiration from the past and other walks of life.
Greg explained that he was always very art orientated and had never really considered fashion as a route for him until he attended a talk by Paul Smith where he realised that he had a passion for it. A little further down his career Greg actually approached Paul Smith for funding for his first independent magazine 'Put' a magazine centred around golf which was a huge hit amongst the public.
Greg then went on to writing to Burberry and sending his portfolio to inquire about working with them. I realise that this takes perseverance and determination which I admire. He explained that he is proud to work in the company as the company is about protecting people, he said that there are no big egos and that everyone is free to speak about their ideas. I found this surprising for such a large designer brand that has had so much success.
The highlight for me was watching the Video of Burberrys Catwalk Show in Beijing. Holographic technology was used throughout to give the show a magical angle. You are un able to tell which are the real models walking the catwalk and which are holograms. I think the whole lecture theatre took a gasp of air when he said that there was no rehearsal but instead they just went for it.
Have a look for yourself.
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