M&S blaming skinny trousers?!?

[Chickenitalia]

Truly read it all today. Poor sales due to men shunning skinny trousers, amongst other things including overbuying on food and poor supply chain.

Am I the only one not at all surprised? The only men I know who shop for clothing in M&S would not wear skinny trousers ever! I know there have been some dubious buying decisions recently but this one is baffling.

Surely it can’t be long before M&S hits the ropes now? (Been said before I know).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51045282

I haven't read the whole thread but just coming on for my standard rant to anyone who will listen about the crappy quality of things that most of us consider M&S designed for - socks, underwear, vests etc.

I've stopped buying socks from them completely - they go hard as rock in 2 washes. DD, who is not a particularly fussy or sensitive dresser, actually had a RASH on her inner thigh because after just 2 weeks her school tights had lost all stretch and softness and were hanging around chaffing her leg so much she came out of school CRYING. It really shouldn't be something that makes me so angry, but it does. I just don't understand how a store that is supposed to be the quintessential English store can't do decent tights and socks for a 4 year old?

Nobody creative or different has being allowed to thrive in either M&S and JL for years.

I'd say the opposite. I used to buy loads of "basics" in M&S - simple stuff like plain underwear, t-shirts, jeans, etc. I can't buy any of that now as there's too much "fashion" that doesn't seem to appeal to anyone.

Take t-shirts. What's so hard about that? But, no, rather than "normal" simple T shirts, a few years ago, they were all with stupid short arms which barely covered the shoulder. Then came the ones with arms so long that they covered the elbow. How hard can it be just to have a rack with T shirts with sleeves that come half way between shoulder and elbow? They just can't bear selling "normal" stuff - always has to be what they think is in fashion, which is usually a failure as they don't seem to know who their customer is.

Young people say it's for the oldies and won't shop there. Oldies say it's for young/trendies and can't find anything they want to buy. M&S needs to take a hard look at itself and stop trying, and failing to be all things to all everyone. It needs to work out who it's core customer is and what they want - not try to persuade their customers to buy what they want to sell!

Since the M&S in my city rearranged the store the kids section is utterly hopeless. They used to have loads of stuff in a range of sizes, now there are only random bits in a couple of sizes. The shoe range is hopeless. There'll be a single design in the size you need, and everything festooned everywhere. If you can track down a member of staff and ask for assistance you get told to buy it online. So that's one of the reasons they're struggling, they don't seem to be arsed to be a shop anymore.

Someone made a good point further up the thread about the changing shopping habits of 40+ women which I think M&S ought to heed. When my mother was 40 (in the late 80s) she wouldn't have been looking for clothes in places like Topshop or Etam or whatever the equivalent was back then of H&M and New Look. She would have dismissed it all as "too young" and would have been shopping in the likes of C&A, Littlewoods, Principles, Debenhams, and yes, M&S. Now I'm 40, and I regularly look in the "young" shops to see what's in at the moment, although I don't buy from there so much because the quality is often not there. What I would then like to be able to do is get well-made, properly cut versions of those styles in natural fabrics, and decent colours. They will be more expensive but I'm ok with that when it's a quality item. This is what M&S should be doing, catering for older women who want to dress well but don't necessarily want to look like they're trying to copy their teenage daughters. Young women already have half of the high street to choose from, they neither need nor want M&S to cater for them too.

I bought three jumpers from them in Autumn and all went bobbly and unwearable after two washes. Two of the cheap cashmillion crew necks and a longer cream roll neck.

In fairness, I took them back and got a cash refund no problem. Although the supervisor was somewhat incredulous that cashmillion was one of her best selling lines and she had no problem with them.

I did get two gorgeous romper outfits for baby dd though. Much more expensive looking quality and design than other high st shops. No crappy slogans or cartoons.

I am target market, 40 something, size 16.

As all the pp have said I just want basics. Normal colours, no weird embellishment, good fit, wash well. I don't want the choice of bad quality tat / fashion fads or vvvv expensive cashmere. I want MID RANGE BASICS.

Do people really try knickers on in the shop?

I don't think you are allowed to. Usually shops won't exchange undies in case they've been worn so I can't imagine them letting people try them on. Maybe M&S do, I don't know, I never shop there.

What's 'being allowed to' when it comes to men and their fetishes?

You're allowed to try them on over the top of your own underwear but obviously they have no way of enforcing that and they have to take it on trust that people haven't been rubbing their sweaty bum cracks with the gusset. Presumably if some grim bloke wanked all over a pair of knickers they wouldn't go back on sale, but the changing room assistant will have had to touch them and said grim bloke would get his jollies from that, and from the thought of being in a cubicle right next to an unsuspecting woman.

Oh apparently they put them back on the racks themselves, after trying them on/in some cases making biological deposits, so that unsuspecting women might later pick them up and buy them.

But god forbid we’re not ‘inclusive’ enough. Better not alienate the people that really matter.

As I said, M&S told me clearly to fuck off. So I did.

I have recently bought two T-shirt's that cost less than the same in M and S and are softer, better fit and quality and more enjoyable to wear. Morrison's is the supplier.

I'd love someone to round up all these similar emails and sent them to Marks and Spencer's. One day they will listen I hope.

What could he possibly mean?

They need to stick to good quality classic basics in a range of sizes representative of the population. Stop trying to set or keep up with trends no one goes to M&S for high fashion. For example I wanted basic white tops. Can hardly ever find size 6. Material is thin see through jersey. Too long in the body even for a standard size.

I was told they no longer have a petite range in all stores you now have to go selected branches. Why would I do that?

Take t-shirts. What's so hard about that? But, no, rather than "normal" simple T shirts, a few years ago, they were all with stupid short arms which barely covered the shoulder. Then came the ones with arms so long that they covered the elbow

It's not just the arm length that stops me buying M&S T shirts - it's the skimpy fabrics that are so ridiculously thin the garments are see through.

Oh and opaque tights. They don't hug your ankle properly so you get this abnormal slack of fabric around the ankle bone which bunches up as soon as you put your foot into a shoe. Looks really tacky and cheap.

cross posted with brassbrass

And vegetarian food. Especially the lunch range. Sandwiches and salads all have this sweetness to them. Yuk.

Well that’s unfortunate. I actually bought dh some skinny jeans from there for work before they changed the changing room policy.

Feminaz
Reading that twitter post reminded me of just how important it is to continue to boycott M&S.

Further to my post, I’m their target market btw.

I’ve posted before about this but the Oxford Circus branch is like an explosion in a jumble sale. Seemingly hundreds of little clumps of different collections of things, which you’d need to wade through for hours to find what you might want (or, more often, not).

Then if you do, by some miracle, spot something that might possibly do, you take it off the rack and it’s randomly splodged in sequins, or has slashes cut in it, or has ugly bows plonked on the shoulder. And the colour will be GODAWFUL. Not a lovely alluring blue but a hard grim shade. Eye-scorching green. Orange you could see from the moon. The kind of dirty pink you get when you accidentally put something red in with a white wash.

The one thing guaranteed to make clothes instantly look classy is the subtle use of colour and M&S reliably fuck this up every single time.

How hard is this, seriously?

I always need basic T-shirts and I go to Muji a few doors down and buy their superb organic cotton ones which are beautiful, last forever and wash fantastically well.

I go to Muji a few doors down and buy their superb organic cotton ones which are beautiful, last forever and wash fantastically well.

Thanks for that tip, I never knew that!

Give them a try, Devereux - they don’t come in a massive range of colours (white, grey, black and various stripes) but they’re great quality. There are a few sorts, the thicker organic cotton ones are better than the slightly drapier Indian cotton, I find. But it’s just personal choice really.

They closed the town centre store last year. I haven’t shopped there since. I used to pop in most weeks and buy bits from the food hall and/or the kids section. But there is no way I’m prepared to drive to the out of town M&S store to do this. So now I go to Lidl (food) or Next (children’s clothes) instead.

Men's shoes for DS to wear at school fell apart after 2 days and the assistants were horribly accusing and unpleasant when I took them back. Not sure what they thought he'd been doing to make them disintegrate (paddling in acid maybe). Oh and the changing rooms thing - WTAF!!! Like a lot of women I'm not going to shop there again. It's a real shame I used to like M n S.

We tried M+S food store before xmas. Not impressed. Pretty much the same food as asda but more expensive.

Except underwear, I've never really shopped in m+s. It has always missed the mark for me.

My peri menopausal self wants natural fabrics, dresses with normal bloody sleeves, not strappy, and t shirts and shirts that are actually long enough.

I bought 2 black t shirts just before October half term ,just so I could layer my clothing. I use washing powder suitable for colours, so you would think I still have 2 black t shirts. I don't, I have a dull black and frankly a dark grey t shirt. I am binning them but years ago, those t shirts would have remained black . I have now swopped over to Tu (Sainsburys) and so far , so good .