Joan Burstein, London Retail Trailblazer, Fashion Champion, Dies at 100

LONDON – Joan Burstein, the pioneering retailer who helped build European and American brands in the U.K., and who championed designers including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan when they were still students, has died at 100, according to her family.

Burstein, known affectionately as “Mrs. B,” was born on February 21, 1926 and died on Friday, April 17 in Ibiza where she lived following her retirement. She moved there after the sale of Browns, the independent London retailer she founded with her equally charming, and business-minded, husband Sidney Burstein.

“She died with dignity last night, surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” said her daughter Caroline Burstein.

The Bursteins, who started their retail business with a single market stall in London, co-founded Browns in 1970 with a store on South Molton Street.

It quickly became the go-to place for women who loved fashion, and who were willing to experiment with new names from New York, Milan and Paris including Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren and Missoni, which Burstein introduced to the U.K. market.

Burstein and her husband ran the shop with a sense of derring-do, determination — and a willingness to defy convention.

With Sidney keeping a close eye on the books, Joan steered the buy and the merchandising, with Browns famously launching and nurturing Galliano’s, McQueen’s and Chalayan’s labels.

In the early days, the Browns mix included Walter Albini for Callaghan, Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, Giorgio Armani, Jil Sander, Calvin Klein and  Comme des Garçons, which were still relatively small when she bought their collections.

Other designers and entrepreneurs, including Paul Smith, Manolo Blahnik, Liz Earle, and Richard James, all cut their teeth at Browns, designing, buying, or working on the shop floor.

Burstein had a gimlet eye for talent, but was also a born retailer who took good care of her customers.

“When Browns opened, we had a very personal relationship with our customers. We got to know their names and all about them. You really wanted to look after your customer, to help them. You wanted them to come to you because you’ve got the best of the best,” Burstein told WWD in an interview to mark Browns’ 50^th anniversary in 2020.

She would always tell her salespeople never to let anybody out of the shop “not looking good in what they’ve bought. We weren’t selling on commission. You need to give pleasure to your customer and your customer gets pleasure from you,” she added.

In the early days of the store, when clients included Julie Christie, Linda McCartney and Claire Bloom, Burstein said her aim was to “dress all those beautiful young people, to make them aware of how they could look, how they could love their clothes. I think I just wanted to make people happy as well as [attracting] customers. I wanted them to feel joyous when they walked out of Browns with their possessions.”

One of the highlights of Burstein’s years at Browns was holding a one-off sale where every item cost 25 pounds. “It was the most wonderful day, and a really lovely thing to be able to do – just to make people happy,” said Burstein, who was warm, funny and always cut a glamorous figure.

As the years passed, Burstein continued to pursue her mission of discovering and promoting young talent, and adding new, international labels to Browns eclectic mix, adding menswear, jewelry and accessories to the ever-expanding series of interconnecting shopfronts on South Molton Street that made up Browns.

The family later opened Browns Focus, a space for young designers including Christopher Kane and Simone Rocha, Labels for Less, Browns Bride and Browns Shoes.

“I owe my career to Mrs. B.,” said Galliano at Burstein’s 90th birthday at Claridge’s. “She came to see my graduate collection in 1984, and before I knew it, I was in the window at Browns — and my first customer was Diana Ross.”

Another guest, Alber Elbaz, said every time he added a sleeve to a dress, he thought of Burstein. “She would come into the showroom, tell me how much she liked the collection, and then ask ‘Where are the sleeves?’” Elbaz said. “She supported all of us designers, but it was never done in a heavy way. It was never ‘Oh, here comes the queen! It’s more like here comes my aunt.’”

Burstein’s efforts were recognized in 2006, when she was awarded a CBE in acknowledgement of her support of the British Fashion industry. A decade later, Browns was purchased by Farfetch, with Mrs. B taking on the title of honorary chair.

It is now owned by Coupang, which bought Farfetch out of administration in late 2023.

Even after her retirement and the sale to Farfetch, her approach to selling, and her values, never wavered.

Burstein said that she and her buyers lived by the maxim: “‘When in doubt, leave it out.’ If you’ve got any doubt about anything that you’re about to buy, forget it, just drop it. Your first instincts are usually the best. That, to me, was very important, really. Integrity. A great part of the whole philosophy of Browns was integrity,” she told WWD in 2000.

At her 90th birthday celebration, where guests included Smith, Blahnik, Stephen Jones, Rita and Angela Missoni, Philip Green, Nicole Farhi and David Hare, Burstein’s son Simon compared her to Queen Elizabeth.

The two certainly had a lot in common: they were born the same year, within months of each other, they loved the same colors and carried Launer handbags.

He said his proudest moment was seeing his mother chatting endlessly with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, when she received her CBE, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire honor, in 2006.

She was brimming with energy – and opinions about fashion – until the very end. In an interview in February, she told WWD that while Galliano “still has it,” times have changed since she founded Browns, the pioneering multibrand retailer, in 1970.

“There isn’t the same talent as in the 1980s and 1990s,” she said. “Today the designers are doing their own thing. It isn’t the same as when Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel and others had their signature, and dressed their customers from head to toe.”

She added: “It doesn’t mean there isn’t talent — it just doesn’t last as long. I would love to discover real new talent.”

Burstein is survived by her son Simon, founder of Leathersmith, which sells men’s clothing, accessories and luxury paper products, and daughter Caroline Burstein, an artist. She is also survived by numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.