Luxury goods brand Burberry splashed out £200,000 to change the name of London’s Bond Street Tube station during fashion week, creating confusion for thousands of tourists.
The sum was revealed after a Freedom of Information request went to Transport for London, which runs the Underground.
TfL’s decision to allow the fashion house to rename the station ‘Burberry Street’ attracted sharp criticism from both tourists and Londoners.
Colour co-ordinated: TfL’s decision to allow the fashion house to rename the station ‘Burberry Street’ attracted sharp criticism from both tourists and Londoners
The commercial rebranding was described as ‘utterly confusing’ and ‘moronic’.
As well as the temporary name change, all of the station’s roundel signs were repainted in Burberry’s ‘knight blue’ colour.
The £200,000 payment is a drop in the ocean for Burberry, whose most recent annual revenues totalled more than £ 3 billion.
It would buy just four Feather Stretch Viscose Gowns – priced at £50,000 each. And it would not make much of a dent in TfL’s massive funding hole of nearly £750 million.
Shares in the group are down by 15 per cent this year amid fears that a slowdown in the Chinese economy will hit Burberry’s sales.
It comes as rival group, Louis Vuitton owner LVMH, recently reported that its sales growth had sharply decelerated.
