Boden - has it finally lost its way?

[TheLadyofShallots]

I've been with them since they started. I have knitwear , trousers and a wool coat that have served me well.
They were supposed to be getting back on track last year but all I can see now are drab dresses and jeans at £100 a pair. Seriously?

I might buy some things at 50% off - I work from home and my clothes for out of work mode are casual - but the prices are crazy.

I now tend to buy from Hush, Toast and M&S. Oliver Bonas if I'm at a big station and have time to spare waiting for my train - the temptation inevitably sucks me in. Sometimes Passenger and Finisterre for outdoorsy items, and I've got lovely dresses from Sezane and Gerard Darel.

Unfortunately the kids are too big for Boden now as I used to get a lot of their clothes there. I occasionally get something for my little nephews or goddaughter.

Did anyone else use to host Boden at Home parties? I really enjoyed doing them & my house would be rammed with friends & family for 2 days solid. I would feel like a MLM scammer hosting one now 😁

Exactly the same. I think I can now say the two dresses I own from decades ago are vintage and beautiful.

I still get odd bits from Boden- knitwear mostly but nowhere near as much as I used to. I now buy from a mix of Baukjen, hush, scamp and dude, M&S (jeans mostly), mint velvet.

Their cotton and linen print shirts are still quite outstanding with fabulous prints.I'd imagine vinted has hit them quite hard as their clothes wear quite well.
I bought one of their 3 in 1 raincoats at Christmas but prefer jaegar wooden coats for dressy occasions.
I'm off to have a look at their website now.

These fashion houses really go off the boil and cheapen their product.

i remember Fatface about 15 years ago did beautiful women's and men's clothing, hems, stitching detail, fabrics, clothes that have lasted years of constant use.

now it's really generic churned out dull clothes in awful colours. Haven't bought anything from there in years.

maybe 2010 was the heyday of high street fashion...

Absolutely agree with this. I used to buy lots from them. I still have a couple of dresses and a tweed coat which I bought in 2011 but 2013 was probably the last time I bought anything that was decent quality.

Back in the day, I used to get excited when their catalogue arrived, and turn down the pages of everything I liked, then have to go back and pick just one. I still buy the odd thing from them but nothing like the amount I used to. The quality has really dropped in recent years.

Same. I've never shopped there for me, but I love their girls clothes and shoes for DD. I generally buy boots and sandals on their website, during their sales. And I pick up coats, leggings, tops and other bits and pieces from Vinted.

Like everyone else said, the quality has nose-dived but I still buy my boots from there as theyre the only place that does a small calf fitting on size 8s.

Their trousers and jeans are great too.

Sadly, the little girl pie-crust collars and frilly sleeves are not for me but I love the bright clear colours.

I sometimes buy old Boden on Vinted but the quality is just too low and the price way too high for me now.

I used to love Boden, I have bought some trousers and a couple of blouses recently but buy from JL.

one pair has gone a bit bobbly

20 years ago I bought loads

I bought a few work dresses in a sale last year, which were fine, but agree that the quality is no where near what it used to be. Mind you, I never got on with their trousers.

I'm mainly shopping at Next now. I used to hate it, but their choice is huge now, and their online service very user friendly.

Too much over priced polyester. It’s not just Boden though.

I quite like some of the designs but I find the colours fade very quickly.

It’s been so long since I bought anything from Boden that they’ve stopped sending the catalogues! My go to now is Brora which has the quality and more that Boden used to have. I think most things are British made. Prices are higher, but the clothes wear well and sometimes there are real bargains in the sales.

I used to buy mini Boden for my kids, say from 2004-2012, and then once grown out of, sell them on eBay, making a good price for them. I viewed it the £5-10 “loss” per item as a hire charge!

I used to shop for me too, I was in a smart client facing role and I could rely on the dresses and blazers. I recently found some of their silk Ravello blouses in the back of my wardrobe 😍

Then fell out of love with them with decreasing quality and increasing prices.

Like a PP my go to is Brora, it’s my biggest spend. I get early sale access and have just picked up leather loafers, leather boots, trousers and some beautiful knitwear. I’ve been shopping there for approx 6 years and a few pieces on the sale each year have elevated my wardrobe. I can pull these clothes on and appreciate how well they are made and how they look. Mostly all natural fibres too.

I also shop at M&S, John Lewis, Monsoon, Mango and Whistles (I have just sent a £400 sale order back to Whistles though as quality was shocking).

It’s an ugly mishmash of hideous colours and leary patterns. Awful.

And what’s with all the jersey dresses? Jersey clings in all the wrong places - could there be anything less flattering?

The whole thing looks like a bad taste fancy dress party.

All those mid range shops have gone down the pan as they insist on shitty modern fabrics. Oooohhh, but look at us, we are sooooo sustainable with our recycled polyester and our bark and bamboo fibres. Acrylic is so vegan friendly don't you know. They cost a fortune, and the quality is awful, and they don't last.

I want good quality cotton, linen, wool, down. I want good classic styles in plain colours.

You can still get it in Europe, I don't know why we put up with such low quality here. Shops like Zara in Europe have better quality and lower prices than we get in the UK. Pisses me off.

Brora is lovely but it is a certain rather niche style.
And it's very very pricey even in the sale.

Haven’t shopped there in years, but the increasing prices are industry-wide aren’t they? Unless you’re happy to buy clothes made by people whose labour conditions are absolutely awful. I buy some basics at places like Tu and Uniqlo, but Boden was never about cheap basics - it was always a bit ‘how much??’, as I recall. Same sort of bracket as Baukjen and Hush. These were never cheap and cheerful brands.

I imagine Boden is trying to steer a course between what’s affordable, and what corners they can cut on quality. The cost of manufacturing, warehousing, transport and materials will all have increased a great deal. Everything is a lot more expensive than 2006, even taking ordinary inflation into account.

Places like Sezane and Brora are more luxe and pricey - not really comparable. Brora jumpers start at £150+!

I bought two tops in Black Friday deal and absolutely love them! Also the kids clothes are great. I easily spent over £300. I think it must be me keeping Boden afloat haha

@TheLadyofShallots
Yes some of Brora I wouldn’t buy, it’s just not my aesthetic. I avoid the more extreme, for example I have just bought black leather loafers at £100 sale price. Agreed not cheap but will slot into my wardrobe and not necessarily scream a particular brand (which both Boden and Brora can do). Great quality and will last years so from a cost per use pov works for me and I am also buying fewer items generally so overall spend is down.
I am guilty of owning a few of the wool fair isle cardigans though 😊 and they’ve been on rotate in the cold weather we’ve just had.

I miss old Boden too. It’s just not worth the ££ now.
I used to like Hush but the clothes are now dreary and shapeless. Mint Velvet is just producing the same thing in more and more unattractive patterns.
I like The White Company but they don’t have a huge range of clothes, but they are well made.

Generally speaking, I am buying fewer pieces because I just can’t find much that I like.

I also stopped buying from them around 7/8 years ago when the prices jumped but the quality seemed to go right down. A shame, as like pp I have great older items from before then. I also used to buy a lot for DD, but she’s now too old for Boden. Like others, I’m now shopping at Uniqlo, occasionally at Hush but I’ve noticed the quality there has nosedived recently too - and Tu, M&S for everyday basics. For DD (12) I buy mostly H&M basics and Hollister.

The kids’ clothes were fab in the 2010s, and they did well out of the vintage prints, Breton/nautique/stripy/simple jersey dresses era, and that whole look that Joules and Little Bird also did very well that decade. But since 2020 kids clothes have gone through a distinctly ugly and impractical phase, and Boden (like Cath Kidston, which tried to go avant-garde before it failed), went in a bit too much for the weird jolie laide puff sleeves and weird silhouttes kids’ fashion of recent years, and I stopped buying it for DD around about then.

I can’t help thinking that this decade’s slouchy 90s-style fashion and much more scruffy athleisure look has also torpedoed clothes retainers like Boden. Don’t get me wrong, I do think they lost their way on the design front as well, plus the price to quality ratio; but fashion is really different now to ten or fifteen years ago, and it’s difficult to justify buying those Boden type, slightly kooky dresses and styles at those prices when everyone else is going to work in trainers, leggings and a massive ugly puffer coat. They did really well out of the smarter, aspirational looks of the 2000s and 2010s, and especially that Sam Cam / Kate Middleton “Tories on holiday” vibe of the 2010s — but now the fashions are just very different.