LONDON — When it comes to fashion, the British high street is one of the most brutal retail arenas in the world, and for years Marks & Spencer was thrashed by its more stylish and fast-moving competitors, including Zara, H&M and Uniqlo.
The British retail stalwart had watched its market share, and morale, shrink as consumers shunned its bland, often frumpy, clothing offer and wondered when, if ever, the store would start making clothes that women and men would actually want to wear.
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Those dreary days may be over as Marks & Spencer is rebuilding market share and establishing itself as a retailer where consumers can find quality, well-priced apparel that actually is fashionable.
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It is also attracting new customers through its high-profile, sell-out collaborations; third-party fashion and beauty brands, and stylish own-label clothing and accessories collections.
In December, M&S will crown those achievements with its first stand-alone store dedicated solely to clothing. The new trial format, at Battersea Power Station in London, will span more than 8,000 square feet, and sell menswear and womenswear, accessories and beauty.
“It’s been two years since we set out our strategy to reshape for growth, and I think we can truly see the beginnings of a new M&S,” said womenswear director Maddy Evans in an interview. “It is no secret that we needed to shake up our clothing, take a step back, look at what we offered and really think about how we could become more relevant to more people, more of the time.”
Evans said the focus over the past two years has been on improving style, quality and value. M&S has been honing the shopping experience; accelerating the pace in digital to offer a fashion-led web and app experience, and empowering the marketing and social teams to drive engagement.
The retailer is also focusing on its own design talent. “Our womenswear team always keeps one eye on the customer and one eye on the catwalk. They filter out the micro or niche trends to offer fashion that is accessible to our broad base of customers,” said Evans.
The aim is to offer M&S shoppers “the confidence to experiment” with pieces that are “versatile, with trusted value and broad appeal. Over the last couple of years, we’ve felt empowered to back ourselves, take more risks, be bold in our choices, celebrate sell-outs — and it’s definitely starting to pay off,” she said.
Those risks include partnering with Sienna Miller and Bella Freud on collections that surprised management with their popularity and cast a halo over the M&S in-house clothing offer.
Richard Price, managing director of the Clothing & Home division, said Miller’s collections have given a serious boost to the store’s fashion profile over the past year.
“We’re obsessed with our style perceptions because a few years ago they weren’t particularly great. With Sienna’s help we’ve seen a massive improvement,” said Price during the party in Soho to launch Miller’s holiday capsule.
The edit features sequined minidresses, beaded jackets and trousers, and fluffy faux fur coats. Prices range from around 40 pounds for a white satin camisole to 149 pounds for the multicolored bow detail sequin mini dress.
Miller’s first collection launched in September 2023 and the actress also appeared in the ad campaign, modeling bright, chunky knits, tailored pieces, and a snazzy hot pink plaid coat.
According to M&S, that collection drove a younger customer to the store, 10 years younger than the store average of 35- to 50-year-olds. It also sold through quickly, with more than 42,000 customers clicking “contact me when available” for the sold-out pieces.
Last month Freud’s capsule of colorful slogan knitwear took the team by surprise. The Oxford Street flagship, near Selfridges, was sold out within the day, leaving chief executive officer Stuart Machin regretting that M&S didn’t bet bigger on Bella.
“The Bella Freud range was a small buy, and just in two hours, we sold 9,000 jumpers. We know we could have been a bit bolder and bought bigger,” he said last week during the interim results presentation.
The 27-piece collection featured merino wool and cashmere sweaters with the words “honey,” “nature,” “divine feminine” and “blue sky” written on them. There was also a pin-striped suit, pleated miniskirt, denim jeans, bow shirts, scarves and totes with prices that were a fraction of those in Freud’s signature collection.
Both collaborations have been driving the overall womenswear offer, and the frequency of shop and spend.
According to M&S, 92 percent of customers who bought the Miller collection last year also bought into the store’s core womenswear lines. Existing Clothing & Home customers who shopped the Miller range this year have increased their spend in overall womenswear by 16.5 percent.
According to Evans, nearly half of all the Miller and Freud shopping baskets contained a core womenswear item, helping the store to grow its overall market share.
In the fiscal half ended Sept. 28, sales in the Clothing & Home category jumped 4.7 percent to 2.03 billion pounds. Adjusted operating profit in the division was up 0.5 percent to 242 million pounds compared with the corresponding period last year.
M&S said growth in the Clothing & Home division was driven by womenswear, with the store’s “style” perception continuing to improve.
In the half, Clothing & Home accounted for roughly one-third of overall M&S sales, with the majority coming from food.
Evans agreed that M&S is a different store than it was two years ago, and now “customers are turning to us for trend-led products, as well as those core wardrobe staples. We were already the market leader in jeans, selling over two million pairs this half, but new trend-led styles such as our leopard-print jeans this autumn/winter had a waiting list of over 12,000.”
In the first half, jeans sales were up 11 percent year-over-year, while knitwear rose 26 percent and casual outerwear 25 percent.
Newspapers and magazine supplements here are filled with the store’s top seasonal picks, which include different weights and styles of cashmere sweaters that rival those at Uniqlo; quiet luxury leather handbags inspired by the catwalk, and the vast denim offer.
Although M&S has made a major push in clothing over the last two years, some of the groundwork for growth was laid under the former CEO Steve Rowe, who was at the helm from 2016 until 2022.
In 2021, the store took a cue from digital giants Amazon and Next and added an online platform for mid-market fashion brands, including Nobody’s Child, Adidas, Reiss, Under Armour and Sweaty Betty.
It also began purchasing brands, such as Jaeger, in a bid to inject new energy into its clothing offer. At one point it was even mooted as a buyer for Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes, which Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group eventually purchased.
It was no stranger to celebrity collaborations, either. For decades M&S has worked with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley on cosmetics and lingerie collections. In September, the store launched a shapewear collection with the model, actress and investor.
As early as 2012, under a previous CEO Marc Bolland, M&S began expanding its beauty offer to include third-party brands. Today the store’s beauty shelves are stocked with more than 30 brands including Clinique, Nuxe, Benefit, and Living Proof.
Still, there is a long way to go, according to the current CEO Machin.
“We are making progress, with a strong program of product innovation and improvements to perceptions of quality, value and style,” he said during the results call. He added that “clear opportunities” exist for profitable growth to achieve the objective of a one percent increase in Clothing & Home market share by fiscal 2028.
Looking ahead, Evans suggested there would be more high-profile collaborations, while the company is also beefing up its circularity program, which has been rebranded as Another Life.
The program includes the in-store clothes recycling scheme that started in 2008, and M&S’s first clothing repair service with the London-based company Sojo, part of the overarching mission to compete in a cutthroat marketplace.