The headlines earlier this month made it seem as though Marks and Spencer was in dire trouble. In fact, group revenue was down just three per cent. Net debt was significantly reduced and, by many indicators, the high street giant founded by Jewish refugee Michael Marks in 1884 was doing pretty well. Except for one sector. Yes, fashion.
It is not a new problem. I recall writing a story for these pages on the “decline” of M&S fashion in the mid-’80s, when the headlines were all about how M&S clothing was no longer competitively priced.
Of course, the wider take on M&S fashion was slightly different from the JC’s. Let me explain for younger readers: from the mid-’60s to the early ’90s, M&S held a special place in the heart of the Jewish community. It was not just that M&S had been founded and run by prominent and influential members of our community, but the company bought and prominently promoted Israeli fashion.
Much of Israel’s success in the textiles and fashion industry was attributable to M&S’s research, development and purchasing power. Indeed, the strong ties between the M&S founding families and Israel were so clear that, in 1974, former M&S chairman, Teddy Sieff, was the victim of a PLO assassination attempt.
I wrote about M&S’s problems again in 2000, attributing the fashion decline largely to a change of guard that had seen the departure of the last of the descendants of the founding Marks, Sacher and Sieff families, alongside the departure of a generation of M&S “lifers” — most of whom were Jewish. I felt that the collective vision and flair of those buyers, alongside the M&S founding dynasty, had provided M&S with the creative fuel to become the country’s principal purveyor of fashion.
And we’re not just talking knickers and bras — M&S was aspirational. Hard as it may be to believe, if you are under 45, chic women (including super chic Jewish women) shopped in M&S for all the season’s hottest catwalk looks, which M&S was able to produce in fabulous quality and in double-quick time.
Those were the glory years when M&S sold fashion in the very heart of the world’s fashion capital with a vast flagship store on Paris’s Boulevard Haussmann. Another perfect illustration of its fashion savvy: on October 13 1984, the Brighton M&S store was specially opened 90 minutes early to allow the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to shop for an outfit in which to address the Conservative Party Conference (and the world’s press) following the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel the preceding night.
But, by 2010, fashion at M&S was in the doldrums. I didn’t hold back in my criticism; fabrics were foul, colours were lurid, styles were hideous.
CEOs seemed never to be given quite enough time to complete the transformation. It seemed to me that, in the absence of rocketing fashion sales, M&S CEOs —like the football manager who can’t rescue a failing club in a single season — were ousted and the next person was ushered into the boardroom to see what he or she could do.
But, slowly, with new teams in place, M&S pulled back inch by inch.
I don’t know whether the truly gorgeous clothes and accessories on sale now result from changes put in place several years ago, or are the result of a more recent overhaul by chairman Archie Norman and CEO Steve Rowe. Yet, still, M&S fashion sales are in decline.
Beautiful merchandise, therefore, wasn’t — isn’t —the answer.
Why not? One reason, is what Steve Rowe calls “profound structural change in our industry” — in other words, how online shopping has killed the high street. And then there is M&S’s “ageing customer base”, explicitly acknowledged by Rowe in a statement accompanying those recent half-year results. But, in my view, older customers (that’s me, folks) and the internet are not the only reasons — or even the main reasons— for the continued downward trend in M&S fashion sales.
Walking through the Brent Cross store very recently, I was forcibly struck by two things. On a positive note, by the sheer number of items of clothing of all kinds, as well as shoes, bags and jewellery that I truly loved. Not so positive is the dismal presentation or “environment” which is crucially important to sales, despite how much shopping we do online. Rowe knows this. In his statement, as well as referring to the ageing customer base, he mentions “an ageing store portfolio”, too.
This is painfully apparent at the Brent Cross store where one is confronted by row after row of footwear, by a vast tundra of Lycra crafted into thousands of bras, and by a limitless number of rails, each crammed with every type of apparel and in myriad colours and sizes.
But it is unkind to single out the Brent Cross store — now a stately 41 — because age is not the crucial factor here. Size is. I’ve also recently visited M&S at Westfield, Stratford. Completed in 2012, its aesthetic is flawless. It is all gleaming surfaces, light-flooded spaces and artfully arranged merchandise.
Yet you feel as though you are shopping in an aircraft hangar. And no one — of any age — wishes to feel that they are shopping in an aircraft hangar. That is especially true for younger customers, more accustomed to the intimacy and chiaroscuro of a Hollister or a Victoria’s Secret.
But however much M&S might fiddle with the lighting, or carve out floor space, however they may rearrange the racks and rails into less linear and more “welcoming” shapes, the sheer size and scale of its stores make the shopping experience feel dismal and outdated. In today’s retail climate, small is beautiful.
For M&S, size matters because it needs to maintain market dominance. And, for as long as it wants to maintain market dominance, it has to be an anchor store in any mall. As an anchor store, size matters. And today’s customer prefers a less cavernous shopping environment.
None of the big high-street names have so far succeeded in reconciling these apparently diametrically opposed objectives.
Perhaps the solution is, after all, simple — nail bars, blow-dry bars and a false ceiling!
Former JC fashion editor Jan Shure is co-founder of www.sosensational.co.uk the fashion website for women over 50.
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