In April 2018, in the wake of the February showcase, reporters from L'Officiel sounded a decidedly appreciative note in favor of the Belt Bag characterizing it as "The new 'It' bag for all." At the time, so much of the care, imagination, and precision underlying the Belt Bag's innovative design appeared to be taking hold in the market, with L'Officiel highlighting, among other things, the through line to historic Burberry fashion. "Inspired by the Burberry trench coat, the Belt Bag mirrors the silhouette and attitude of the iconic outerwear, most notably the adapted lapel details, complete with an oversized belt that wraps around the bag."
Director of Design, Women's Accessories, Maureen Witojo noted the new opportunities as well as the balancing act introduced by designing for the luxury segment. She explained:
In this era, obviously, it works slightly different because we have lots of beautiful leathers, so we push for beautiful leather, and we just need to have a certain balance. You have a certain quantity of beautiful, luxury leather, but then you have also the millennial, the cooler sort of leather. I wouldn't want to say cheaper, but you need to have an elevated feel about it. So we work on different levels, but then as designers, if your director asks you to design a bag with a very luxurious piece of leather, then yes, it's a joy.
Across many functional groups, including design, engineering, product development, and merchandising, Burberry people spoke of the iterative, as opposed to strictly sequential, nature of the work. These ongoing interdependencies became more apparent as design and manufacturing adjustments were required post-launch, or as the number of versions of a shape expanded. There were also early indications that serving the luxury segment would require more ongoing communication and coordination across functional areas.
Maureen noted, "Yes, designers have their preference, but we also want to understand what merchandising needs. So we're trying to balance, and then hopefully we get to that final product that everybody's happy with." She continued: "What's lovely about Burberry is that all of us can work together. There's no competition."