Aibu to think that most of the clothes in m and s are depressing awful or ridiculously overpriced

[Dowser]

I have £45 in vouchers. Some ran out at the end of the month and I could only buy clothes.

So I went to a big store in a city centre. I wandered around the ladies section. I don't wear trousers and skirts so yes that cut my choice right down but a lot of what I saw I didn't fancy anyway.

I thought I would chose a pretty summer dress. I'm in my 60s and most of what i saw was just plain frumpy, horrible material or more than I wanted to pay. £80 for a pretty plain summer dress when I have prettier at home.

So I decided to buy a couple of bras. Ineed a white one for my up and coming wedding but it's now appointment only and I wasn't able to make that time.

So I just decided to go with the size I wear. ( the three assistants that were chatting could have whisked me into a cubicle and at least measured me while they waited for their next client/ victim to show up) in the time I told them my measurements, they got their tape measures out and converted my statistics to a bra size.

So I bought two very ordinary white ones...£22-50 each. Plain, ordinary boring white just to use the vouchers. A couple of weeks ago I bought a much prettier one for £10.

I'll probably take them back and get a credit note and see if anything else comes in....I'm not holding m breath.
I was so looking forward to a nice treat but came away thinking ....just who are they designing for?

I think M&S are good for underwear, nightwear, swimming costumes and beach stuff but it depends on the size of the store. I only bother going to the large out of town ones.

I am 5ft 9in and size 20 - I find clothes shopping in M&S nearly impossible. If they have jeans in size 20 it will only be online and the long length is limited to one or two styles. There was a navy rain jacket I wanted but the sleeves were very short and in one of the online reviews a happy customer said it was a perfect fit - she was 5ft 2in!!
I bought all my summer tops, linen shirts, and lightweight trousers from East as the sizing is very generous and polyester is not their go to fabric. I hate the feel of nylony clothing.

I've bought underwear from there but have been super disappointed with their maternity tights. Emailed to complain and they wanted me to post them to them (at my cost). No thanks, I've already paid £10 for a crappy pair of tights that didn't go over my bump and kept falling down. I'm not walking to the PO at (then) 35+wks pregnant to post them back to you.

They never have a good range of sizes on the shelves, the kids stuff was all over the place and hardly anything available in age 7. I had some stuff to return so just had to buy whatever I could find. I really want some nice, plain basics for DD (or indeed our soon to be newborn DS).

Don't bother going there now, Debenhams is my new pottering around store. I've always found it a bit random but there's obviously loads more style choice with the concessions stands.

YANBU at all - M&S clothes are just horrible now. The cuts are strange, the fabrics mostly cheap and nasty, and everything has some silly detail added to it that makes me want to attack it with scissors.

I swing between two opinions of what may be wrong. Either their buyers are all middle aged men with no clue at all about the female form or fashion, or they're all girls just out of design school who know that M&S isn't for their friends so they buy with an imaginary granny customer in mind and think that frumpy is what people want.

I'd love to get my hands on M&S womenswear and bring it back to good quality, classic pieces instead of this horrid fascination with providing 20 garish shades of the same cheap cardy with tacky baubles attached.

I wonder when they last did proper market research - actually measured women's shapes and asked about preferred styles was. Decades ago, clearly, looking at their criminally incompetent bra fitting service... It's as if they want to go the way of Woolworths.

I don't even think they are good for underwear any more. I was measured there a year or so ago and the measurement they came out with made me but I tried on a few bras. None of them fitted, the fit was laughably bad. In the end I went along and tried on enough to find what seemed a good fit. It was a struggle to find anything that wasn't cheap-looking polyester or a vile colour. And they were about £45 each.

I tried recently for a bikini for a holiday - just awful. I ended up ordering from Figleaves and got nicer style and a better fit from the numerous ones I tried in M&S.

Even DH who used to buy his T shirts from there has said he won't any more because the fit is terrible and the quality is bad.

They're just trying too hard to please an entire market and failing at all of it.

I am so irritated by their moulded bras. About 99% of the bras in my local M&S are moulded and I hate them. I am not big busted - 32DD - but a moulded bra makes my boobs look like torpedoes.

The non padded t-shirt bras come in packs of 2, one of which is white. I know no-one other than my septuagenarian mother in law that wears white bras nowadays.

Having moaned, I do like their skinny jeggings and their short shorts.

I can't comment on m and s but it is a known fact (in my head at least) that when you have vouchers for somewhere, there will never be anything you want to buy

The menswear is ok though. Do you have a son/partner/friend who might buy them off you?

I've found some well priced basics from there - striped t-shirts and shorts which actually sit at my waist and are the right length. I also still get my knickers there (now that they've started doing actual sizes as opposed to 10-12 or 14=16).

I wouldn't buy a lot of their clothes, but it's not all dreadful.

Before my grannies died, both of them developed a keen interest in blouses with 3/4 length sleeves and high necks. For some reason, the classics range has long or short sleeves and flat collared open necks. It seems odd that they're so out of touch with markets that they're specifically targeting.

The colours this year are a bit iffy, but I find the foot glove shoes very comfortable and usually the only shoes I can wear.

I completely agree.
My local M & S now carries very little stock, and what they have is unattractive and overpriced.
I couldn't even find plain black T shirts for the gym.
I believe they still employ Mark Boland (?) as head of fashion; his theory is that you don't make too many of any popular, fast-selling item , because then 'everyone will be wearing it.' !!!

Bra update...I feel like crying.

Finally got round to trying on the bras. 38 DD ..just like I've been wearing. Husband to be had to shoe horn me into them and what they did to my titoms ( I've used that word to make me laugh so I don't cry) was hoik them to the front in a funny rounded ice cream cone sort of way. I couldn't breathe on the slackest fastening. I looked like I sort of had these rounded torpedoes pointing out in front. I've been trying to lose weight ( 9 weeks without sugar )and I just feel like I'm some sort of huge monstrosity.

I've emailed this thread to m and s. had no reply.

:-(

So they will go back , will get my credit note and buy food!

Bra update...I feel like crying.

Finally got round to trying on the bras. 38 DD ..just like I've been wearing. Husband to be had to shoe horn me into them and what they did to my titoms ( I've used that word to make me laugh so I don't cry) was hoik them to the front in a funny rounded ice cream cone sort of way. I couldn't breathe on the slackest fastening. I looked like I sort of had these rounded torpedoes pointing out in front. I've been trying to lose weight ( 9 weeks without sugar )and I just feel like I'm some sort of huge monstrosity.

I've emailed this thread to m and s. had no reply.

:-(

So they will go back , will get my credit note and buy food!

Oh I really like their Indigo range (that's it!) I'm mid 30s, a teacher and a size 12. Can't decide if that makes me in their target market range or not?!?

Are you really a 38DD?

Have you measured yourself.

Im a size 16 and a 34 band. Most people are lower than me in reality. M&S are terrible for bras.

Measure your under boob size. This is your band size.

Then the widest part of the boob. Over nipple.

Come back on and someone will work out your real size and you will feel more comfortable and slimmer.

I was wearing 38e until a thread on here recommended a 34gg and I've been to independent bra shop and been fitted now at that size and look so much better.

Ooh I love a good bra intervention!

I'd been wearing 32A for years and it turns out I'm a 28C - quite nice to actually have boobs now rather than the flattened chest that the old M&S measuring system gave me...

Under boob 34 and over nipple 41.

Someone suggested a 34 can't remember whether it was an E or F

But the 34 band in m and s looked like it wouldn't even go round my head.

M and s have a new measuring system now. They calculated me on the old system using my measurements.

I feel like I'm having a fat day today so my under boob may be 35

So with those measurements I'd say you're a 34 F (or potentially a 36 E if you feel you're having a fat day!)

Bra intervention basically works by subtracting the under bust measurement from the over bust measurement and then it's one cup size per inch. UK sizes mostly go as follows:
1 = A
2 = B
3 = C
4 = D
5 = DD
6 = E
7 = F
8 = FF
9 = G
10 = GG

Hth!

Tremelo the menswear is shockingly bad too. I recently got 2 linen shirts and a pair of trousers for my DP. The shirts are meant to be the same size as the others we bought a few years ago, same style and shape. Except the new ones are at least 3 inches smaller than the old ones so he couldn't do them up. The trousers seemed to have a huge amount of material in the crotch which bunched up to look really weird.

I stopped buying their bras last year as they just didn't fit properly but I recently tried some of the silk ones in the Rosie collection. I'm a 36DD normally but for these to fit I'm apparently a 36C. I can't explain it at all given they are a similar style to what I buy elsewhere.

Thanks Dodo.

Based on how fat ( bloated ) im feeling I was thinking I was going to be a 40 E

I shall look for a 36 E

It seems really little !

No M&S bra has ever fitted me properly. And yes, agree with everything above about the general meh-ness of their clothes. Per Una in particular looks like it has been attacked by an explosion in a haberdashers.

I've found the odd nice top or whatever there, but mainly the only non-food things I buy there are kids' clothes, knickers, and tights. And even then I think the quality of their pants has gone downhill - thinner fabric and lots of bottom-of-arse-cheek-baring styles.