How M&S has finally fixed its fashion - for every age group: RUTH SUNDERLAND visits HQ to find out what's changed behind the scenes and what it means for investors
My love of fashion never extended wholeheartedly to Marks & Spencer. There was the occasional piece I loved but, in general, the clothes didn't fit properly, the colours were off-kilter, fabrics looked cheap and the stores were depressing.
And the jeans – the best that could be said about M&S denim was that it looked like something East German women wore before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I wasn't the only one to feel that way. Which is why the retailer lost its way and its shares, which hit a peak of more than £7 in 2007, lost so much of their value, even dipping below £1 in autumn 2022.
M&S is looking good on everyone from business reporter Leah Montebello (centre), who is in her 20s, to those in the over-50s vintage, such as Anne Ashworth (left) and Ruth Sunderland
From left, Leah, Anne and Ruth look stylish and summery in floral M&S dresses. The store has raised hopes of a recovery many times in the past, only for it all to go horribly wrong
This season, however, I've become a super-fan. Who needs Armani, when there are M&S trouser suits I would happily wear to a lunch with a FTSE 100 chairman?
Casting my eye around our City desk, all my female colleagues are wearing M&S. It's looking good on everyone from our business reporter Leah Montebello, who is in her 20s, to those of us in the over-50s vintage, such as Anne Ashworth and myself.
As for the denim, it is flattering, easy to wear, a fraction of the price of designer brands and – words I never thought I would write in this context – fashion forward. This is one big reason the shares are having a revival – up more than 50 per cent in the past year.
However, while I am happier as a shopper, as a long-term investor with a small number of shares, I am sceptical.
My investment is still showing a loss, despite the revival. And M&S has raised hopes of a recovery many times in the past, only for it all to go horribly wrong.
Women's fashion is only one part of the business, which also includes a large food retail operation. But it is probably the most important, and certainly the most emotive.
Ruth rocks a green M&S trouser suit. Women's fashion is probably the most important part of the business, and certainly the most emotive. Blazer £59, trousers £39.50, top £25, shoes £55
Anne cuts a dash in orange. Blazer £49.50, trousers £39.50, shirt £15, shoes £45
M&S denim used to look like something East German women wore before the fall of the Berlin Wall. No longer, as Leah's fashion-forward outfit shows. Waistcoat £35, trousers £39.50, trainers £49.50
Which is why I have come to the nerve centre of M&S womenswear to meet director Maddy Evans and the big boss chief executive Stuart Machin. I want to know what exactly is their strategy and why shareholders should believe that this time it really will work.
My new-found enthusiasm for M&S, I soon discover, is not down to the whims of the gods of fashion. It is the result of several years of painstaking hard work by Evans, 51 this year, and her team.
In her airy atelier at M&S's headquarters in London's Paddington Basin, she is an elegant advertisement for her wares, decked in a blue shirt and ecru wide-leg jeans.
As for Machin, he spends every weekend trawling his stores and is constantly phoning Evans with his observations on what women are wearing.
A graduate of the elite London design college of St Martin's, Evans joined M&S five years ago after a decade at Topshop and Topman (now owned by Asos). She leads a squadron of buyers, merchandisers, designers, trend-spotters and even colour specialists, who devote their every waking minute to divining what the women of Britain want to wear.
No detail is too small to evade their eagle eyes, from the precise way a collar stands to the exact shade of green for a ribbed top. The aim, says Evans, is to capture 'the modern mainstream'. She says: 'We want to attract new shoppers, but we do not want to alienate our core customer, who is 60-plus but still wants to be relevant and stylish and is still interested in trends.'
The trend team spend their days travelling around the UK and the world, people-watching.
'It's our job to interpret trends for our customers. They don't want to be leading-edge fashion, but they want to be contemporary,' she says. Machin chimes in: 'I watch all the fashion shows. On a weekly and monthly basis we do trend flashes on what the teams have seen when they are out at exhibitions, festivals and shops. We have a huge amount of eyes and ears out there.'
Operation Fashion is working. M&S returned to the elite FTSE 100 index of the UK's most valuable stock market companies last summer, four years after being demoted due to a slump in its shares. Its profits soared last year to £716million and it paid its first dividend since 2019.
Sales in its fashion and home division, which includes womenswear, are up by more than 5 per cent. This is heartening for long-suffering shareholders like me – but I feel there is scope to go further. So what is the plan to get even better?
Evans and her teams are creating 'a new trading model'. This involves taking bigger bets on particular lines that are selling well, such as wide-leg jeans.
They are pushing through deals with trusted suppliers to improve the speed with which garments can appear on the rails.
The idea is to combat the curse of M&S. In the past, when it did manage to alight on a garment that people really liked, the item would sell out far too fast, never to return.
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'We don't want to sell out in 48 hours. Three weeks, good, two days, no!' says Machin. This has not been entirely fixed: I have been waiting for weeks for some jeans.
However, the introduction of third-party brands, such as Nobody's Child and Sosandar, is a success with sales up by a third.
The number of suppliers for knitwear, denim and lingerie has been cut, as has the number of fabric mills, all of which has helped boost M&S's profit margins.
Every single line of clothing is subjected to rigorous analysis.
'We look at what sold the year before and think should we do it again?' Evans says. 'We have gone bolder, deeper, braver into some trends. We had a cold-shoulder top that was completely new this year and sold out in a couple of months.'
The most significant transformation is in the denim. M&S is already a surprisingly big player: one in every five women who bought a pair of jeans last year got them from the chain.
But there is scope to perform far better in the younger and more fashion-conscious market.
'When I arrived, skinnies were dominant, with around 70 to 75 per cent of sales,' Evans says.
'The silhouette moved from skinny to mum jeans, then boyfriend, then wide leg,' she says, showing me a row of denims hanging on her wall.
Maddy Evans leads a squadron of buyers, merchandisers, designers, trend-spotters and even colour specialists, who devote their every waking minute to divining what the women of Britain want to wear
'From that we eased out to the palazzo,' she says, referring to an ultra-wide, Seventies-style cut.
'Then you move into the carrot. It is like a baggier version of a mum jean – but it has a seam that twists and looks great on multiple body shapes. It sits on the ankle bone.' I am not instantly convinced – perhaps because the name is off-putting – but after a wait for them to come back in stock I buy a pair. They are indeed very flattering, and sell out again almost immediately online.
The next style Evans is testing is 'the horseshoe', which she describes as 'an extreme version of the carrot'.
In the past, when M&S tried to be trendy, it would get it wrong. What is she doing about that?
'Our interpretations of trends used to be not quite right', Evans admits. 'So I look at the proportion, the fabric, the finish. I ask: is it feminine and flattering? Is every detail right? The wrong detail can be a killer. I am obsessed.
'We work with suppliers and our technical team on how we construct and finish our garments so they will wear well.'
Her team turns every item inside out and deconstructs it. On a shirt, for instance, she checks the 'fusing' or interlining on a firm collar to make sure it stands perfectly, measures the pockets and checks that the buttons won't come off.
'In the past six months we have done a big piece of work on jackets,' she adds.
'We took all our jackets apart, to check we had the right shoulder pads, the right fusing, the right lining. We asked ourselves – is the internal pocket sitting in the right place and is it the right depth?'
One of the big trends this autumn, she says, will be 'heritage'.
She is delving into the store's archive in Leeds, where the company started life 140 years ago.
Thousands of items of clothing are stored there in chilled units to preserve them.
Ruth's love of fashion never extended wholeheartedly to M&S, but now she's a convert
Anne (above) and Leah (below) show how far the chain has come since the days when its fabrics looked cheap and the stores were depressing
'We use the archive for prints and shapes – we don't copy directly but we bring a modern interpretation,' says Evans.
One piece that was inspired by the archive in the September campaign will be 'a beautiful wool check trench coat'.
In its wilderness years, M&S clothes were displayed in a dispiriting way, hanging limply on rails.
Now there is a huge effort focused on styling. Evans says: 'Customers want guidance on how to wear clothes, how to put products together.'
She and her colleagues have also made huge efforts to fix the previously erratic sizing.
Chief executive Stuart Machin describes himself as never satisfied
Of the templates used to make patterns for cutting a garment, she says: 'We went through every single block on every single category.
'We have tried them on multiple women in terms of ages and shapes. We updated everything.'
Her next targets are footwear and bags, along with athletics apparel – whether or not it is actually worn for sport. She points to a new range of white skirts.
'I don't think people are actually wearing these to play tennis,' she smiles.
The Good Move in-house sportswear brand, which was launched in 2020, is already a £50million-a-year business.
The erratic weather brought by climate change is another opportunity. Recent more rainy, cooler summers mean more closed toe sandals, and more lightweight coats.
Evans says: 'Linen and denim trench coats have done really well – you can fling it on, or roll it up and put it in your bag and it is still stylish.'
Machin, who describes himself as never satisfied, tells me: 'If we get it right, and follow trends in a way that suits our customers, womenswear can grow much more.
'Maddy,' he says to Evans, 'You have the best job. You can dress the nation.'
The only downside, speaking personally, is that all my spending on the M&S app has nearly bankrupted me.
But my shares are up at £2.87, and, as the Election looms, it's comforting to know at least one national institution is thriving again.
