The Reinvention Game

With a new creative director whose sights are set on global domination, Mulberry is breaking out of its British-heritage box. GEORGINA SAFE flies to Seoul to see how JOHNNY COCA is rebooting a classic.

- Georgina Safe

When I started at Mulberry I said, ‘We can’t stay focusing on the United Kingdom, because you can’t survive today if you are looking only at one place,” says Mulberry creative director Johnny Coca over a Coke Zero in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt hotel in Seoul. “It’s important, to make a brand international, to make strong and significant growth, and also I think if I was born in the UK I would be proud to see my brand be part of the world.”

That’s why Coca, the Spanish-born creative director of this very British brand since 2015, decided to present its current collection, Eccentric Sensibility, with a catwalk show in South Korea in September, as the first of a series of international events aimed at taking the Mulberry message to the world. “It’s important to show what our direction is in a global environment, but keeping all the time the signatures from our culture of the UK,” says the designer, who, despite his jet lag is warm and engaging, with a charming line in Spanglish.

When we meet in the morning he’s wearing jeans and a baseball cap — and two striking silver hoop earrings in each lobe — but he’ll change a few hours later into a spiffy white shirt and black trousers for the Mulberry show in the evening at the K Museum of Contemporary Art. On arrival at the Gangnam gallery, the atmosphere is electric. Unlike other fashion events around the world, which are notoriously tardy, the 8pm show starts at 8.09pm — that’s Korean precision for you.