There has been an overdose of press lately concerning British fashion empire Burberry. While you either love it or hate it, everybody seems to have an opinion on the signature-checked house. It's almost as if the UK's most successful fashion house, having conquered the globe with stores in 17 countries, is receiving minimal support from it's homeland.

While the image in our heads of a women clad in a Burberry skirt and Burberry jacket hauling a Burberry-clad baby out of a Burberry wrapped buggy is rather tiring, the label's marketing men no Dare we even mention in an unfashionable way. The tongue-in-cheek advertising of mixing supermodels with aristocracy initially made the brand appeal to both the Bridget Jones's and the Mommies and didn't tread on the toes of the older customer.

Raymond Boyle, a lecturer at Stirling University and a specialist in popular culture, says: "Burberry is a brand established for the doubt feel the message was interpreted in much the wrong way. elite and the affluent, which has rapidly expanded. At some point someone in the marketing department said: 'If we can bring it slightly downmarket, we can increase the sales.' But the result is that it gets picked up by popular culture and swept away. It's worn by celebs, over-worn by neds, then there is a fashion backlash against it."

Since the appointment of Rose Marie Bravo in 1997, the brand, once appealing only to matronly types of older upper class ladies, made it's way to Kate Moss in a brilliant advertising campaign and the company's value was raised from GBP200 million to GBP2.4 billion.

Today the signature-look check is no doubt over-exposed in Britain and has been absent from the fashion pack's wardrobes for a while. Still, Burberry is by no means a sleepy label, and the company, which has reduced its check to 15 per cent of the collection, is gaining success with the fashionable Prorsum Collection, designed by Chris Bailey. Hailed as the new Tom Ford, his spring/summer 04 collection has been heralded by the press and is the one to watch for next season.