that awful pink m&s dress...

[Bleurghghghgh]

Is now haunting me via ads, with additional horrific items! Thanks MN!

Oh God not floral print! It's horrific enough already :-(

It might be a laugh to wear this dress and the matching jacket at my next team meeting - in a size 18 for added flare.
I wonder if any of my colleagues would dare to say anything

There was an article in The Pool yesterday following on from the Sali Hughes one about there being no decent clothes for women aged 30+ on the high street. This dress was featured (in navy) as an example of something that we'd want to buy!

Love the fact the advert
for this thread is a sewing class

Is there a chance...just a chance that we will all be wearing this big 70s shite in a few months time? Hmmmm? Nobody liked skinny jeans once upon a time.

I'm glad I found this thread, I walked through m&s in awe and horror at the flouncy offerings

Radio 4 economic reporters were discussing M&S financial prospects.

M&S are due to report on their end of year profit.

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/21/marks-spencer-to-report-slump-in-sales-after-short-lived-christmas-boost

DMBL40 has the dress in the new floral colourway on her blog. And the yellow monstrosity (minus the marching trousers, although she does mention them) as well.

Naively, I had thought she only put clothes on her blog that she would actually wear. I guess she is more in bed with M&S than I had thought...

From the Financial Times just now

Marks and Spencer’s pre-tax profits fell by 64 per cent in the year to April 1, dragged down by restructuring costs, property impairments and lower clothing sales as the high street fixture turned away from a packed calendar of promotional events.

Profits before tax and exceptional items were down 11 per cent, slightly ahead of analyst expectations according to an average compiled by Bloomberg.

Britain’s biggest apparel retailer said its market share had “stabiised” and that it now accounted for a higher proportion of full-price sales than a year ago.

The popular food business, which focuses on high-margin prepared food and is popular with affluent and hurried shoppers, continued to exceed management expectations.

Chief executive Steve Rowe said:

As we anticipated, the planned restructuring of M&S has come with a cost and has impacted profits, but the business is still strongly cash generative and we reduced our net debt.
We achieved a huge amount in the year and whilst there is still much to do, I am pleased with our progress and we remain on track.
Looking ahead, we will continue our programme of self-help in a tough trading environment. We remain committed to delivering for our customers and shareholders as we build sustainable foundations for the future.

Looks Marks and Spencer are building up the food side of the business at the expense of clothing.

Sadly DMBL40 may as well be on the M&S board at this stage. I literally must haseen every single thing in the womanswear dept on her blog in the last 3 months.

Mind you, she's just as bad with Debenhams. She's giving the impression of being bought and paid for these days. Shame, cos I like her a lot.

According to the Guardian the "easy to wear" dress is "flying" off the shelves
www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/may/24/slip-wrap-cult-dress-shapes-summer-2017-city-kaftans-sleeves-baring-one-shoulder-cannes

Looks awful on the model in the featured picture.

My DH still buys the odd pair of trousers from M&S at the nearest "out of town" store - the women's department is like tumbleweed - the till desk there is closed and only the Men's one is open. I guffaw when DH asks if I want to have a look around the ladies and get "something"

If it's "flying off the shelves" then how vine Derry one of us has seen rails full of the damn thing in our local store?

Vine Derry? Wtf? Come every

M&S profits slump due to fall in clothing sales

No shit Sherlock.

To be honest I look forward to M&S's eventual disappearance from the British high street. They are so arrogant, never listening to what their customers actually want, and no amount of paying bloggers and magazines to promote their crap will make up for that in the end. Plus it's so wasteful selling so much stuff no one wants.

I believe there is still a group of "loyal" M&S shoppers out there right now, people/women who don't really tend to shop online and don't know about the masses of other shops/brands that are out there (I include my mum and MIL in this) so tend to gravitate to M&S as they always have done. They won't be around forever, and no amount of hideous "bestselling" pink dresses is going to endear younger generations to M&S's rubbish offerings, unless they turn their brand around sharpish.

Even their food sales have dropped, surely this has to be as a result of the general changing of the perception of the brand? People who previously might have gone in, dismissed the clothes but bought food, now won't even bother to go in.

They are not flying off the shelves. They are slippering off the hangers and being trodden on/kicked under the rails.

That's my theory.

The thing is, despite M&S's paucity of options, I am still an M&S shopper. I am sitting here in a plain black maxi dress from last summer, which occupies a neutral ground I call 'not exactly unflattering' which is as much as I can hope for from M&S these days. It's easy to wash, doesn't need ironing, can be zhuzhed up with a necklace/denim jacket, and is comfy in the hot weather. I bought 4 last year, when I didn't want to think about what to wear.

I noticed there's something broadly similar this year, but I had to hunt for it behind the bonkers ruffles, the 'fuck you, bras!' off-the-shoulder gypsy tops, and the weird 'little girl's party dress from 1979' with the big tiered skirt. I haven't seen florals like that since Holly Hobbie last roamed the earth.

So we're still here, M&S. But you are making it VERY HARD to buy things.

I quite like it.

Went in M&S today and saw El Pinko in real life, in all its monstrous glory. Meanwhile I had spotted (Eureka!) some cropped trousers (all diff patterns but eyecatchingly sort-of trendy) so tried them all on. Shame on M&S - all sooo badly made that one leg of ALL of cropped trousers was puckering on the inside seam about 4" above the knee. ALL of them??? So this means they used the same faulty pattern then..... ..... plus the bum area was baggy underneath if you see what I mean so it was like hanging off your bum when it should be more closely "hugging". Errrrr I am overweight so you can see if twas too baggy for a bit of a porker, what happens to a size 12 etc?!!!! Yep I tried on the next size down as I had a spare 10 mins before DH arrived at t'shop and got them on ok (not comfortably done up but done up!) and it was the same, spare material hanging below me Pippa!!! On the hangers they all look fairly good quality - try them on, sh*te. I had high hopes ONE pair may fit :-/ PS Anyone seen on M&S website the Arabic type dresses? With the tie ups n tassels hanging off? The one in navy was gawd-awful, but the white one looked like someone was having a right joke - ie lets see if anyone is a silly billy and thinks this is FASHION!!!!!

The MnS guy was on news saying it's because we all want to spend less on clothing and more on days and out and coffee! I did laugh

Oh man. Gingernaut you are dedicated to the cause- this dress is hideous and very clammy I would imagine.

I'm experimenting with other dresses (Peacocks, H&M and Primark) to act as slips/petticoats.

I'm seeing a lot of fitting room action.

I've spent more time and effort on this dress than I have done on job interviews.

Top pick in today's Guardian!!!

'fuck you, bras!'

I reckon m&s have been taken over by some sort of Stepford Wives cult. As for the Guardian, their style page is always questionable.

Oh Gawd! Now the Daily Mail have joined in.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4538764/The-dress-dividing-Britain-45-M-S-pink-number.html