Is it short for Harpenden?
I thought the same about those two godawful ‘blouses’: the frilly red one and the purple tie neck snake print one. I started sweating from just looking at the dreadful polyester chiffon in the latter.
The pale grey jumper looks like a horse blanket and would magnify anybody’s middle. The black and red striped thing is unmentionable.
I’m 47 and I don’t feel under-served by the high street particularly. I’d like more natural fibres, for which I am happy to pay more. I’m suspicious of any enterprise that tells me that nobody is giving me what I need, so they will kindly fill the gap with, inevitably, cheap unpleasant crap.
I don’t remember Mandolin but I do remember George Davies’ fourth and final fashion project, the ill-fated GIVE. It too was aimed at 40+ women, and had in-store alterations. Christ, the stuff was awful. Frump central.
It shows how little fashion businesses know about what we want, even George Davies after he’d made a success of Next (when it was good, and sold proper, well-made clothes for working women), George at Asda (which was good once and sold leather shoes, wool and cotton) and Per Una (which was not always frills and ‘jazzy’ tops aimed at women going line dancing, although it has improved a bit recently).
I wasn’t impressed by the Mary Portas gear either.
I am quite capable of shifting through any shop to find stuff I like. Do clothing manufacturers imagine that if they open a shop for middle aged women we’ll beat the door down and abandon the other retailers?