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

752 replies

Behooven · 08/01/2016 12:22

Says it all...

I used to like M&S but I'm not surprised they are struggling to sell womens clothes, WARNING MAY BE UPSETTING
OP posts:
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30
Floisme · 06/02/2016 11:04

There are so many stylish and interesting women who could have fronted that archive: women who remembered the clothes and could have told you stories about them. Such a waste of a good idea.

Hiring Alexa Chung is basically a great big 'fuck you' to their traditional customers. And if they seriously think they're going to attract - and keep - a new generation then they've been smoking too many funny cigarettes. Even if Chung's followers buy the odd item, it'll be as a one-off. They won't stay and look round the store; they'll probably just buy online and not even come in.

And they're obviously spending a shed load of money on the project so there won't be any budget left to overhaul their basic ranges.

On a different note, seeing that pie crust blouse makes me feel a bit sad. Poor Diana, she looked like a trussed up turkey.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 06/02/2016 14:32

Here are those trousers. I agree they are ghastly. The piecrust blouse was hideous too. Oh dear.

I used to like M&S but I'm not surprised they are struggling to sell womens clothes, WARNING MAY BE UPSETTING
RomComPhooey · 06/02/2016 16:53

Can you imagine those trousers and the piecrust blouse together?

var123 · 06/02/2016 17:12

Who is Alexa Chung?

Did she perhaps wear that 70s style suede skirt a couple of years ago, get photographed in it, then it was a rare success for M&S, so now they have hired her to look through all their old designs to see what else she can make popular?

That's only a guess! IU hope I am completely wrong, else it smells of desperation especially as the skirt looked really horrible, though I guess some people must've liked it!

Kr1stina · 06/02/2016 20:51

Yes it's desperation . They are counting the fashion press and the bloggers. The people who tell us that denim dungarees are essential workwear for the new season .

ouryve · 06/02/2016 21:23

I'm a middle aged peri-menopausal woman and I'd look like a sofa with frilly 1980s cushions in that piecrust blouse thing.

ouryve · 06/02/2016 21:35

denim dungarees are essential workwear for the new season .

If you're a minion.

They even sell the rest of the outfit.
www.marksandspencer.com/pure-cotton-3-4-sleeve-dobby-yoke-top/p/p60075211?prevPage=plp
(I have this top in the most beautiful raspberry pink - and never wear it because the cotton is so thin that it clings to every lump and bump.)

Paperblank · 07/02/2016 08:59

My DM has some similar trousers...

She bought them in the 70's, she rocked them.

Not one of my friends or family would consider those trousers. Ever.

DialMforMildred · 07/02/2016 10:09

Denim dungarees are only essential workwear if you're employed on Bo and Luke Duke's farm in the Dukes of Hazzard, surely?

The problem with Alexa Chung fronting this reinvented 'archive' collection, for me anyway, is that it's aimed at 20-somethings who look at a pie-crust collar shirt and think, "LOL, how ironic! I'll wear it with my ironic dungarees and stand next to my boyfriend in his ironic hipster beard" , whereas the people actually spending money in M&S think, "Bloody hell, I'm now so old my clothes are ironic. And you've picked clothes that a hipster 20something can pull off, not what's going to suit me now."

Serious question: do celebrity collaborations actually have much traction with M&S customers? The Rosie lingerie collection sells because it's genuinely nice underwear - Rosie herself (while probably very nice in real life, etc) comes across as completely bland in the marketing material. I don't understand the point of the 'Rosie make-up range' - surely it's just autograph stuff in different packaging?

var123 · 08/02/2016 07:13

I think there aee only 2 options:

  1. M&S Couldn't care less if it loses its customers who have had their 35th birthdays.
  2. M&S think that their customers have no other option but to continue shopping there, so there is no need to make clothes they would want to wear (now that they've grown up and all).
FredaMayor · 08/02/2016 08:42

The 'celebrity' collaborations are in reality simply endorsements of ranges already formulated and are there to get media coverage because of interest in the sleb. As a marketing tool it's not bad, but it comes nowhere near addressing the fundamental dreary M&Sness that lies like a pall over everything in their womens' clothing range. In comparison to other (better) retailers in this area the customer is entitled to feel insulted.

DialMforMildred · 08/02/2016 14:53

That's what I mean, though - it's pretty obvious Rosie HW isn't designing those knickers (or Claudia Winkleman making lipbalms in her spare room, or Twiggy running up sequinned jackets in her shed). So how much brand sparkle are these celebrity 'collaborations' adding that M&S couldn't be taking for themselves, eg, by branding the Rosie line plain M&S Autograph, and getting everyone talking about how M&S has got its lingerie mojo back? If Rosie's got a 3 year contract to be the Tits of M&S, then when she goes, so will that association. Have they ever done chef collaborations for ready meals in the Food Hall - or is the confidence in the M&S food brand too strong to need it?

Maybe the point is that M&S clothes don't need to be stand-out fashion pieces; their strength used to be providing reliable building blocks of everyone's wardrobe. So maybe a really clever 'word of mouth' campaign about how good/well made/ethically sourced the clothes are would achieve more than trying to hitch the company's wagon to a celeb who can't possibly appeal to all of an extraordinarily broad demographic. It's like the Uptown Funk Xmas ad: it's a great song, but M&S used it at exactly the moment everyone finally got sick of it.

CauliflowerBalti · 11/02/2016 11:19

Now then. On the strength of this thread I went to try some of their jeggings on yesterday, because mine are getting a bit worn bloody bastard Christmas what have you DONE to my thighs?

A revelation. I'm sitting very happily wearing one of the two pairs I bought.

M&S, stop making everything else. It's all shit. I forensically picked the shop apart yesterday. Just do jeggings. Be the jegging shop. Own that high waist. Yes.

Kr1stina · 11/02/2016 12:10

Grin at cauliflower

OrchardDweller · 07/04/2016 08:28

They just won't listen ! www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35984316

Jupiter2Mars · 08/11/2016 10:04

The news today is that M&S are reducing down their clothes business and closing stores.

It brought this thread to mind. I wonder what happened when MNHQ asked if they would come on here and do a webchat on the back of this thread?
Did they think that they knew what we had to say, agreed with us, but it was too late to fix things?
Or did they think we know nothing about retail, business or fashion, or indeed what's good for us and all they had to do was carry on doing what they've been doing in order to get a different result?

CallarMorvern · 08/11/2016 11:45

The only decent big store we have where I live is M&S, as M&S go it's a good one. But I haven't even set foot in the door for the last 6mths...actually I tell a lie, I went in for white school bras for DD, they could only offer me black or flesh colored ones 😠. Given that I've lost 27kg and have had to replace all my essentials, I didn't even consider M&S.
What they need is to be like Uniqlo, practical, quality basics.

CallarMorvern · 08/11/2016 11:47

Oh and I kind of like the trousers that spawned this thread, I'd wear them with black wedge boots and a black polo skinny rib jumper. Blush.

TheCatsBiscuits · 08/11/2016 13:55

Their cushions are really great at the moment, to be fair to the design team.

Oh, wait.

TollgateDebs · 08/11/2016 14:47

On the ITV Breakfast Show, this morning, the CE of M&S just wasn't getting it! Again he was asked about the basics, but now it appears they are going down the 'Food' route. Recently I have, for the first time in years, bought a couple of pieces, in the sale. They are great and I have had a number of compliments on them. The shoes are on trend now and maybe were a little early in the stores, hence on sale and a blue lace dress that is very flattering (a little like a self-portrait type lace rather than a nightdress lace) and has washed brilliantly. However, I want good lambswool knitwear, good underwear, well made and tailored skirts / trousers, in a durable fabric that doesn't pill, fray, click, sag, bag or look like a rag when sat in. I will pay for good quality basics, but I will not pay for another item that just doesn't stand the test of time. I bought a bra in store two weeks ago and it fitted fine, so thought get another (had to go online, as only one in store) and guess what, it didn't fit, even though it was the same size! It is not the stores that are failing but the management and lack of imagination in the creative / buying staff.

TheCatsBiscuits · 08/11/2016 15:15

I bought a really nice M&S bra about a year ago, wished I'd got more - so when I saw it in the outlet shop I picked up a couple without trying them. First time I struggled to put the new one on and had a panic attack that I'd apparently ballooned in weight... until I held the new one up against the old one and saw the band was a good inch and a half shorter. An inch and a half! That's almost a whole bra size!

M&S have the enviable reputation of being the absolute go-to shop for a nation's underwear - and, bar the Rosie for Autograph line that doesn't suit me they've just thrown it away in recent years with unreliable sizing, design that fluctuates from frumpy to wildly overdone, fitting staff who routinely give you the wrong size. It's not US you're letting down, M&S - it's YOURSELVES.

Nicketynac · 08/11/2016 16:50

A few years ago my DS wandered off in M&S (was actually about two feet from us, under a rack of trousers) and as a place to lose toddlers, I can highly recommend it. Security guard summoned within seconds by a granny, staff sent to watch exits, and a small army of grannies helping the search. It was only afterwards that I realised that almost everyone was of a certain age...

Mrsmaudwatts · 08/11/2016 18:46

Christ alive! My eyes, my fucking eyes!! I think this thread needs deleting.

ZaZathecat · 08/11/2016 20:00

My dm had a heart attack outside M&S. They brought her in, made her comfortable in their furniture, sent a member of staff in the ambulance to hospital with her until I arrived and sent her a lovely bouquet of flowers. They may not measure for bras well but their customer service is excellent!

Dowser · 08/11/2016 20:53

Just clicked on m and s website
Here's your chance ladies

There's an advisor on line
Who's going first?

www.marksandspencer.com/l/women/alexa-chung/alexa-chung-collection?intid=hp_car_2_2_031116_cialexa

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