The Brief for Barbour International
Barbour International was born out of a one-piece wax cotton suit, introduced into the Barbour family in 1936, by keen motorcyclist Duncan Barbour. It became so popular that it quickly became synonymous with motorcycling (famously worn by Steve McQueen in 1964).
Today, Barbour International is a stand alone brand, with both men and women’s collections inspired by the biker look. Each season we work with Barbour to create their new campaign.
Our creative process began by establishing the key brand motivations and target audiences. Once these brand messages and demographics were isolated, we built storyboards and mood films that demonstrated, visually, their key brand messages coming to life.
Our Approach
This year, Barbour wanted to reinforce their motorcycling heritage by partnering archive images (with BI branding) with their modern day street-style to show both the history and the future of their brand.
This campaign needed to show that they are contemporary and premium; less gritty than their previous campaigns. We decided a contemporary, concrete city space would be the perfect location to shoot the modern day images.
As the images would be used alongside the archive imagery, it was important they had a clean and simple aesthetic that really showcased the silhouettes of the garments. By shooting both to camera and not, we were able to incorporate a sense of on-the-go movement.
The success of each of our campaigns is demonstrable by way we capture the essence of the fashion brand’s way of life whilst creating a distinct identity for each collection. The content is utilised across a huge range of platforms and a number of aspect ratios, being fundamental to Barbour International’s sales across the retail market.
