I used to like M&S but I'm not surprised they are struggling to sell womens clothes, WARNING MAY BE UPSETTING

[Behooven]

Says it all...

All the neck facing flaps out and needs folding in

Wundaweb is your friend - strategic 'dots' ironed in here & there to stop it flapping around.

I suggested in Site Stuff that MN should have a webchat with somebody senior from M&S. BeccaMumsnet says this is an interesting idea and they will talk about it! Flak jacket and flameproof suit for whichever M&S person draws the short straw to do that, if it ever happens!

Ooh, that's good news. Hope it happens!

I'm planning my question now .

I bet they wriggle away from addressing any of our concerns!
We used to love M&S and we want it back. Reply: That's great to hear. We are always evolving but we never forget our core values of quality and blah, blah.

Your food and cosmetics dept are great but we aren't happy with women's wear. Reply> Its great that you like our food halls. We are very proud of them, as we are of all depts.

Your clothes dept is chaotic. Reply> We find our customers appreciate being able to browse as part of their shopping experience but we are always looking for new ideas to improve the shopping experience.

You never have popular sizes in stock. Reply> We are always happy to order in for you.

Sometimes i want to try something on before placing an order. Reply> Our refunds process is very straightforward.

The quality isn't there. Reply> Our food and cosmetics businesses grow from strength to strength.

and so on until the end when they say thanks for your time. i will take all you valuable comments on board.

If I were M&S, I'd see this as a golden opportunity to put things right before they lose a loyal customer base forever. But will they see it that way?

"Surely they must know most people buy 2 or more matching knickers for an expensive bra?"

Umm, no. I never try to match my bra with my knickers. As I prefer to wear 100% cotton knickers they are never going to match any bra I wear, except in colour.

They should just sell bras and lasagne and leave fashion to the whippersnapper companies. Hideous!

Is it so hard to do a mixed pack of black, white and nude midi knickers in cotton instead of that awful microfibre sh**e ?
Grrrr.

I want them to do packs of all black pants like they used to do.

I only wear their black low rise thongs (which are 100% cotton as far as I recall) and last time I bought some they only had black/white mix so I had to buy extra packs and I sent the white ones to the charity shop (I don't wear white clothes because I always end up spilling things on them and life is too short for all the extra washing effort white stuff requires).

"I never try to match my bra with my knickers. As I prefer to wear 100% cotton knickers they are never going to match any bra I wear, except in colour."

For every day I wear cotton, and can find sets that look as if they match in M&S but for something nicer Huit is the brand. I was talking about the Rosie for Autograph range mainly in the original post, so pretty but you are very lucky to find even one pair of knickers to match your bra size even when they are full price. I like to have 4 or 5 best sets in good order for going out.

"I like to have 4 or 5 best sets in good order for going out."

When I go out what I wear under my clothes is irrelevant, as long as it gives a good silhouette. I am not "on the pull" so it doesn't matter if my bra and pants don't match. OH couldn't care less whether they do or not as he wouldn't notice as he isn't one for noticing details like that.

Agree about black pants have only been able find all black in style wanted at factory outlet.

Either coloured or white or black for single people households I would need about 20x5 packs to 10 pairs of white pants before worth doing a white wash for. Or they get thrown together and grey from first wash

Great post Var. I hope the read that.

John Lewis do multipacks with just black knickers in them. Lots of styles in cotton too. Just sayin'.

I'm nearly 60 and have been married for 32 years, so I'm never "out on the pull" I like to be nicel dressed from the skin up and would feel very uncomfortable wearing a nice dress without nice underwear beneath it. This is a style and beauty thread! Looking round most of the ladies in the lingerie department on my last visit I suspect most of those browsing were of a simiar frame of mind.

Great post var123

Constance - I am slightly creeped out by the idea of you looking at the other customers in the lingerie department of M&S and trying to work out their " frame of mind "

ExConstance - not me ExConstance! I wander around the lingerie dept thinking "FGS When is this obsession with underwiring going to end? My boobs are big enough and I don't need them pushed up, but what I do need is something that won't dig in. Oh look! A bra without underwiring. Great! Now do they have my size.... uhh no. Ok, let's see if there are any others... nope, maybe I'll buy yet another underwired one and hope for the best."

For me, underwear is what you wear under clothes to give you a good silouhette and the only other caveats are that it mustn't show through or be uncomfortable.

Constance We're all different of course but I would only feel uncomfortable in my clothes if my underwear was 'uncomfortable' and I hate ANY manmade knickers, so cotton bikini style over matching sets every time for me .

Reasons why I have bought nothing in M&S for about 10 years :

I CANNOT get anything to fit. I am pear shaped and everything seems geared to women who are straight up and down, no waist , no hips.

The horrible embellishments.

The changing rooms are tiny and so unforgivingly lit - they make you look terrible and make you just want to give up and leave.

All the polyester.

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of women's clothes in M&S are actually cut for men. As well as the lack of provision for waists and hips, the shoulders on all the dresses I have tried on have been massive.

So perhaps we women are not their target audience at all, rather they are aiming to be the Go To shop for transvestites and trans women?

The colours are awful, tops are either too short or not fitted at all. I have bought some boots there this year and a couple of jumpers, but they are acrylic - I would have paid good money for a v neck wool jumper, a bit fitted and a reasonable length. They don't sell them.

Aaah those big shoulders are back in fashion Barbara they are real fashion victims aren't they?

Mind you I wish the QUALITY of the women's clothes was as good as the men's. A pp mentioned this before.

var123 if the underwires on your bras are digging in, then you are wearing the wrong sized of bra.

I see the DM have been reading MN again for inspiration - lazy journalism as usual here.

Also one of the PPs ' links showed a shirt dress and it mentioned that it's the 'androgynous' look this year. ! Barbarao

Had a giggle to myself when I got an e-mail from M&S this morning saying I had exceeded 3000 sparks points so I will get priority emails about new launches. Bet you are all jealous that I will be able to see all that SS16 stuff before you!

I had a good look through my wardrobe and I have a couple of autograph blouses, several pairs of skinny jeans and one shell top for work ( which is a bit short). No work trousers, no t-shirts, casual tops or jumpers.

I think my biggest bug bear is the length of the tops/jumpers because I see some that I would like if only they extended to mid hip.

I destroyed my Sparks card. I didn't see the point in it.