Who exactly are M&S aiming their clothes at on their website?
Young women don't shop at M&S because the clothes are for old people. My sister buys very little in M&S but on a walk round she'll say pointedly: "Aye, your granny would love that!" I take the view that our granny had better taste.
I've certainly got better taste than to buy most of the tat in the women's section of the website.
For example, nightwear to M&S means baggy stripy stuff or baggy floral stuff, although you can get a very nice cashmere dressing gown for 199 quid - as if! The height of style to M&S appears to be the satin nightshirt. They must think it's stylish - they've been selling it for years, along with the floral-print, capped-sleeve knee-length cotton nightie with the dinky wee satin bow at the yoke. I suspect M&S bought a job lot of a million of these in the 30s and won't renew the design till they've sold every last one.
In the Classic clothes collection, there quite a few perennials that have been around for years. Whether the fashion in the real world is for long or short skirts, the clothes in this collection hang at knee length. The skirts are often pleated. The trousers are often tartan. The blouses look as if they were lifted straight out of the pages of a Littlewoods catalogue circa 1957.
Go to the Per Una collection and you'll find nice clothes. But do you really want to spend 40 quid on an M&S cardigan that you'll feel obliged to keep rather than 12 quid on an Asda one you can junk when it goes out of fashion and/or the sleeves stretch down to your knees?
And don't kid yourself you're paying for quality at M&S. There are almost as many complaints of poor quality as there are of high prices.
M&S gave up making clothes in larger sizes about 5 years ago. Their petite range is gradually disappearing too. Maybe they should just chuck clothes altogether and become a bog standard supermarket, specialising in high end quality grub. But wait - I think Waitrose and Whole Foods have overtaken them there, and Tesco and Sainsbury's are catching up fast.....
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