Can we talk about clothing brands and target demographics?

[CrkdLttrCrkdLttr]

Because I’m thinking about the brands that form the core of my ‘going out to meet other grown ups’ wardrobe, and laughing at the Margaret Howell mail shot I’ve just opened. (Socks and sandals photo.) Beautiful young model, and each garment will be wonderfully well made - but I know no one under fifty who wears MH. That’s fine - but I wish the marketing acknowledged the fact.

When a brand does make an effort to engage with the real buyers of its clothes I’m full of awe and gratitude - Raey at Matches is usually great at this.

Studio Nicholson hovers somewhere in between. Again, everyone I know (in the UK) who wears their clothes is older and richer than me, probably in a creative profession. Not a wispy 20 year old.

I never used to care. But I’m wondering if marketing is the reason 99% of the middle aged and older women on MN exclaim that there are no decent clothes for them. There are - but not every brand tells you so.

Thank you for that shot of colour, @throwawayaway1! Wonderfully cleansing for the eyes. Your frock is gorgeous - and I’ve put several on my list. Is it a new website - I don’t remember Solace London looking so dramatic before?

Still not sure the Good American dress has quite the devil-may-care romance required for getting drunk and philosophical in a field …

I've got 4 Eponine dresses. The latest is this "Queen Mab'
Saloni is bookmarked but I don't have any.
This Times article might be of interest.

I went to Walker Slater recently with DH as he’d got it in his head that he wanted a tweed jacket. They were so rude. Wasn’t sure if it was because we were young looking (compared to everyone else there) but we got no service whatsoever, not even eye contact or a hello. It was bizarre! Honestly hostile.

It’s now on my list of shops to avoid (along with Salvatore Ferragamo, Crockett and Jones and a local vintage shop who are missing out as I spend loads on vintage and having one on my doorstep should be amazing!).

Re Paul Smith - I’ve always been impressed (although get a lot of mine second hand). Some of my most complimented clothes come from there and the service has always been good. DH gets loads from there.

I like Paul Smith too, and my husband and son both love its/his clothes too - we all like colour. Paul does colour in spades. He stepped back a little while ago and the imagination disappeared but he's back now and it's as good as it was.

The quality is usually excellent and the colours tend to stay the same idea, so my very old red cardigan and very old skirt patterned with old powder boxes go with more recent pieces, for example.

This year the womenswear had some particularly lovely colours in the Floral Street shop. I was in the shop in Borough Market a week later and the clothes were different- just as lovely but more casual and less classic. And slightly different colours.

Brilliant!

All.

Zeus and Dion are fabulously made. Really. Quality.

I've bought a couple of MaxMara bits this week.

I love them.

Navy.

Simple.

No fucking about.

Lots of lovely links in this Times article.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/915ed916-d8e1-11eb-b92f-5fe539a30c29?shareToken=41f120d33eb5c079affbf89d8c37ddd4

Including this
annamasonlondon.co.uk/collections/shop-all-blouses-1

I like the Lillie and the Hattie @NatashaDancing

It occurred to me today that I no longer have Mrs Danvers #2 dresses or suits.

However my Max Mara icon coats could well be Mrs Danvers.

I've lurked quietly on the thread since the beginning (I wonder if many others have also?).
The title spoke to me as a mid-50s, well-educated, business owning, top-of-my-game woman; who despairs of setting out to get new things for work. Outside of work, I am absolutely a disgrace...I now live in polyester trackies and a fleece . I used to love a good clothes shop.

I am carrying menopausal, or post-Covid, weight gain, having had a personally horrendous 12 months in the middle of the lockdowns.
I struggle to see a brand that speaks to me-I am happy to pay for decent, comfortable clothes which project authority without being stiff.
The equivalent of men who turn up to work, no longer in a nice suit and tie, but now wearing a v.nice shirt and chinos.

Thank you @CrkdLttrCrkdLttr ....I've learned loads from listening in on this conversation. Although I have nothing valuable to add.

HilarysMantelpiece
If you're willing to persevere with the hellish jumble sale rails of TK Maxx, I've seen some nice dresses in there from Gant and Toast lately as well as some nice cashmere jumpers.

I'm not sure if they're mid-50s because I'm terrible at associating styles with ages, unless it's clichés and unflattering dated trends. They were reasonably classic items that could be styled in different ways.

I’ve enjoyed the thread myself, @HilarysMantelpiece! It’s been nice not to be shouted at for my weird and extravagant tastes.

Sorry you’ve had a rotten year - if a few nice things to wear can help, it’s definitely worth pursuing. So … first three as yet unmentioned places that you might enjoy browsing - I don’t think I’ve bought from any of them but they look interesting. Others on the thread may have properly knowledgeable opinions.

www.rendez-vous-store.com Several brands I’m more or less aware of, all gathered together with a wonderfully crumply aesthetic.

www.ven-store.com Can’t tell at a distance whether they constitute value for money - depends how much it appeals.

www.massimoalba.com/en-uk/products/farah2-cotton-silk-muslin-skirt-ink-r544-t4488

Going back to a conversation way back, my cousin, a few years younger than I am, is going out tonight and has FaceTimed to show me an ancient knitted dress from Top Shop that she’s thinking of wearing. It’s utterly gorgeous.

@HilarysMantelpiece agree about tkmaxx and brand alley, as well as the ones mentioned previously. Like PP I went down NAP, outnet and 24s rabbit holes. A bit of cross referencing for sizing and getting all your measurements down is helpful.

Separately, I wondered if you all fancied applying your analysis to House of Bruar and in particular This…

AT 5'5", it would swamp me @lurking, but in my 20s I owned a plaid cloak that belonged to my great aunt, who wore it to race meetings (over another coat I suspect). It vanished somewhere in my moves, and I didn't miss it but I hope it is still loved and worn. TK Maxx is my favourite random jumble sale, and occasionally you get a gem!

Lurking my initial impression was 😍😍 as I could imagine wearing something like that to a smart work-adjacent evening event (not that I go to these any more but indulge me) and then removing the cape at an opportune moment for maximum positive-clothes-drama.

However… I just spotted the camel coloured version has a video and it doesn’t look how I imagined. It just looks a bit more… solid? chunky? than I expected.

I have a few House of Bruar items that I’ve bought second hand. The quality is great but it seems quite classic, veering towards unimaginative. Someone described it on a different thread as off-duty Princess Anne, so perhaps we return to Burke’s once more?

@Lurkingshark , I really like it but would prefer the collar to be detachable. I would be willing to try it on, but I think I'm a bit too broad-shouldered and short for it.

Off-duty Princess Anne would do me. Is she ever off-duty?

That one has me stumped.

@NatashaDancing that made me laugh.
In my head it’s a scenario like shangpie described except that never happens to me either anymore, as I don’t live a Princess Anne lifestyle and work events are tending to be more casual.

I think it’s the cape I love, and the potential of a mid century Sherlock Holmes fantasy. I like capes, and always thought they’d be good to cycle in.

Crossed with my unpurchased imaginary Batsheva dress it would be quite a look for the morning commute.

I had that coat in the 1980s - it was beautiful so I can completely understand why you bought another one. Mine got too small for me and I gave it to my DD who wore it for years but eventually the wool was worn out!

House of Bruar used to send me their catalogues. It was around 2007 and even round here the high street was booming. My son was in after school club and was regularly the last to be picked up because I used to stop in Debenhams on the way: 3 floors of women's fashion, including Top Shop, Kookai, Warehouse, Princiiples, Oasis, Wallis, Coast, Red Herring and Designers for Debenhams such as Betty Jackson and Matthew Williamson. And then I'd get home to the House of Bruar catalogue and go and at all the ladies in pearls and gilets.
But the laugh's on me because they're still going after Debenhams and every one of those labels has folded, and also because I like that cape.

Lord … How heedlessly snooty I was about most of those brands at the time @Floisme. Though I recall the Breakfast TV excitement whenever Debenhams hooked up with a new designer - and my slightly shamefaced sneaking in to take a look. (Jaeger men’s department was more my thing then.)

I’ve had no relationship with Bruar. The cloak dress might be fun to swish about in, but it’s a bit too cosplay for me.

However… I just spotted the camel coloured version has a video and it doesn’t look how I imagined. It just looks a bit more… solid? chunky? than I expected.

The camel version looks like what an upper middle class country woman would wear in Midsomer Murders if Midsomer Murders were relocated to rural Perthshire and no one in the costume department had ever set foot in Scotland far less rural Perthshire.

Huh, the cloak dress is giving me Nurse Ratchet/Call the Midwife vibes. Capes are great, despite what Edna says, but not particularly practical and can be downright lethal on a bike (I bike everywhere, and the wrong outfit choice has nearly killed me more than once).

I was under the impression HoB was very expensive, not that that cloak dress is a steal or anything but the suggested items underneath are weirdly affordable, I'd expect knee high boots to be costing more than dresses.

@Lurkingshark the cape would show off the flouncy sleeves of my Batsheva dress.

@Firefly2023 the current iteration of the coat is rather larger than my 1980s version.

Have we answered the question of demographics??

What is coming through on this thread is posters seem to start with a mental picture of what they are or want to be/ would like to be. So there are eg iconic women from the music world, members of the Bloomsbury Set and the Fabian Society, intimidating avant garde artists, high flying lawyers, characters from Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, members of the Bauhaus group, Goths and Vampires, some Grace Kellys, Katherine and Audrey Hepburns, and Helena Bonham Carters, some family members from Little House on the Prairie, several Amish and Quakers. This isn't cosplay but more a way of grounding a starting point.

Therefore the criteria for choosing an item of clothing is- "does it fit with the idea of who I am or want to be"? rather than "is it on trend" or even "does it suit me"

Re the latter, I see threads on here talking about " getting your colours done" and "what suits a...." I've no idea what "my colours" are.

If I really like something and it fits, I will feel good about it and that gives me confidence. I think being comfortable about what you're wearing (which doesn't mean "comfortable clothing") translates to "suiting you" . It's entirely possible of course that I'm completely deluded about this, but it really doesn't matter because in my head I'm happy.

envoyofbelfast.com/

Whoever posted about Envoy of Belfast, thank you.