Influential businesswoman Dame Margaret Barbour was awarded her damehood in the Queen’s 2002 New Year Honours List for her outstanding contribution to British industry. At that time, she’d been Chairperson of J. Barbour & Sons, the designer outdoor clothing company, for almost 30 years. She still runs the business today, aged 82, alongside her daughter, Helen. They’re the fourth and fifth generations of the Barbour family to lead this elite British brand, which is famed for its iconic, all-weather waxed jackets.
When Dame Margaret Barbour received her honour and elite title at an investiture ceremony, the Queen made clear that she respects the Barbour brand. Dame Margaret recalled that the monarch had said ‘she was delighted to be giving me my award, and that surely everybody must have a Barbour jacket in their closet’.
A Trio of Royal Warrants
If you favour Barbour waxed jackets, you’re in very good company. The Queen and other members of the Royal Family have often been photographed wearing them. They’re reportedly de rigueur at Balmoral, the monarch’s Scottish residence, where she enjoys countryside pursuits. No wonder Barbour has earned three Royal Warrants – from Prince Charles, the late Prince Philip, and the Queen herself.
You could say the Barbour brand is to waxed jackets what Savile Row is to tailor-made suits. Barbour has numerous fans in elite society and is a byword for British excellence.
Dame Margaret’s Key Achievement
It’s clear that Dame Margaret Barbour, who’s thought to be worth £1.21 billion/$1.54 billion, is incredibly successful, but what’s her main achievement? We believe it’s the way she’s reinvented Barbour with the aim of ensuring that its clothing is always in demand.
Barbour was founded in the late 19th century in North East England. For decades, its customers were mainly fishermen, farmers and other individuals who needed waterproof, practical outerwear at work. Since Dame Margaret took over, she’s sought to appeal to a broader range of customers and cultivate a more luxurious image for the brand, without losing sight of its core audience. For example, she’s designed a series of modern waxed jackets – including the best-selling Bedale – that are stylish as well as practical.
As the company’s website explains, ‘Barbour became a household name in the late 1980s as customers began to wear their Barbour jackets in town as well as in the country.’ A Barbour waxed jacket is now just as likely to be worn by a socialite stepping out in Chelsea or weekending at her family’s country estate as a farmer ploughing fields.
Continuing John Barbour’s Work
The Barbour brand’s success and longevity is all the more impressive when you realise that taking charge of the business was far from Dame Margaret Barbour’s mind when she married into the family during the 1960s. She’d been working as a teacher, so was more familiar with classrooms than company boardrooms.
However, a tragic event in 1968 altered the course of Dame Margaret’s life and career. After just five years of marriage, her husband, John Barbour, died suddenly. He’d left his Barbour shares to her, and she vowed to devote her considerable energies to the firm.
‘I had to continue that [work], because he had loved it so much,’ she explained in a BBC documentary, Made in England: Our Northern Jacket Empire, broadcast earlier this year.
Managing Barbour became a labour of love for Dame Margaret. ‘I still love it 50 years later,’ she emphasises.
Supporting and Inspiring Other Women
Barbour is led by a mother and daughter, and many more women are employed at its factory in the North East, which produces around 600 waxed jackets each day for customers around the globe. Female machinists make up the majority of the highly skilled workforce.
Dame Margaret Barbour supports women in other ways too. In 1999, she set up the Women’s Fund and made an initial £250,000 donation to it on behalf of Barbour in order to help women in the North East deal with challenging situations and fulfil their potential.
She’s undoubtedly one of the most inspiring individuals leading an elite British brand today.
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