Crude, vulgar and cheap. M&S fashions savaged ... by the store’s former designer
BOSSES hoped it had turned the corner after years of criticisms for its women’s fashions.
But yesterday Marks & Spencer was under fire again – from one of its former designers. Muriel Conway savaged the store over plunging necklines, ‘vulgar’ prints and a lack of flair.
She also told shareholders at the firm’s annual general meeting that the sizes marked on women’s clothing had become unreliable, saying ‘there was a time when a 12 was a 12’.
To applause, Mrs Conway, who introduced herself as a designer in women’s fashions at M&S for almost 25 years through to the late 1990s, said: ‘I could weep when I see what’s in stores today. Where is the originality, where is the flair, where is the newness and where is the good taste?
‘The prints are ugly and vulgar, the colours are crude and cheap. Why are the necklines always too low and why are your polo necks always too high?
‘Whatever happened to quality control? There was a time when a 12 was a 12 that you could rely upon to fit without even trying it on. Today, I can wear anything from a size eight to a 16, because I am sure your manufacturers are cutting them all together and putting in different size labels. In my day, heads would roll.’
M&S has enjoyed recent success with a lingerie range by model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, while a brown suede skirt won rave reviews in the fashion press.
But this did not placate Mrs Conway, 87, from Hendon, North West London, who suggested that M&S and its fashion department were too interested in pleasing the fashion Press rather than its ordinary customers. Referring to Lord Sieff, a member of the founding family of M&S and chairman from 1972 to 1982, she said: ‘Lord Sieff must be turning in his grave.
‘He always used to say to me, “The day you lose your core cus-
‘In my day, heads would roll’
tomers is the day you lose your business” – and he was right.
‘Not only have you lost your core customers but you have alienated them. They don’t even bother to look anymore. We women haven’t changed, you have. You have lost your identity, you no longer even have an image at all.
‘The day that you make clothes that customers want to buy and not that you want to sell, they will return in droves. You must return to the drawing board and concentrate on what brought this company to be a great institution loved by all.’
Other shareholders also complained about designs, poor fit and a lack of availability of popular sizes in wardrobe essentials.
The criticisms at the AGM in Wembley came as M&S reported another fall in clothing sales.
Figures for the last three months showed that general merchandise sales, which includes fashion, fell by 0.4 per cent compared with the same period last year. Food sales were up 0.3 per cent.
Although profits rose 6.1 per cent last year to £661.2million, this is well below the £1billion M&S was making as recently as 2008.
Chief executive Marc Bolland blamed the slip in clothing sales on a cold May and M&S chairman Robert Swannell rejected Mrs Conway’s criticisms.
He said that while he respected her experience and her views, they did not reflect the business.
‘I not only get a nudge in the ribs from my wife if she thinks we are not on track, but I talk to many people in this business and, I am afraid, that I don’t recognise the complete blanket criticism that you give,’ he said. ‘Customers are coming back in considerable numbers. You will continue to see style and quality improve, step by step.’
Mrs Conway said later: ‘The chairman was rather cross with me afterwards. He said I had not said anything positive about the food and menswear. I told him that I came to talk about ladies’ fashion.
‘He told me that what I had said would be reported and if the shares go down it will be my fault. He seemed to be sulking.’
Shareholders also called on M&S to pay staff the living wage and questioned a £4.5million bonus and shares package for Mr Bolland.