The John Lewis ‘nightmare’ is a dream for many of us!
Boris’s consort may have turned up her nose at the Downing St decor, but in the real world...
THErE are slurs, and then there’s the ignominy suffered by one of Britain’s most popular department stores following Carrie Symonds’s arrival in Downing Street and a guest’s description of the decor as a ‘John Lewis nightmare’.
The shame of it. But not for long. Consumers rallied because this was an attack on the spiritual home of Middle England; a mugging of sensible tastes and aspirations, an insult to vast swathes of the population for whom walking into a John Lewis store is like sinking into a hot bath on a cold night.
Where has the Duchess of Cambridge been known to go for the odd spot of shopping?
To Peter Jones, of course, the John Lewis outpost on the King’s road in Chelsea, an elegant but soothing emporium which its clientele call ‘PJ’s.’
So loved is the John Lewis brand that after news broke last month that the 170-year-old Sheffield store would close, fans began pinning heart-shaped love letters to its windows. And
say in how the company is not for nothing did the run and are entitled to a late Poet Laureate John share in profits, although this Betjeman say that when the cherished bonus was end of the world came scrapped for this year. he wanted to be in the haberdashery department of Peter Jones ‘because nothing unpleasant could ever happen there’.
John Lewis is like a family member you moan about. Fine to do so but you don’t much like it if somebody else is criticising him or her.
What’s more, let’s not forget that the John Lewis Partnership is the largest employeeowned business in the UK. The 78,000 staff are partners and co- owners who have a
JOHN LEWIS — which has been around for 156 years — has been navigating choppy waters long before any attempts at capsizing this once-trusty vessel.
During the pandemic, the company has cut its number of shops from 51 to 34, leaving the inhabitants of cities such as Aberdeen, Peterborough and York, as well as Sheffield, to mourn the passing of this retail stalwart.
The Never Knowingly Undersold pledge is ‘under review’, but no more store closures are planned for the time being.
Instead, it has launched its new Anyday brand, a range of 2,400 home, technology and baby pieces, created by the company’s own designers and costing 20 per cent to 40 per cent less than its other collections.
The aim is to win back the faithful (but Carrie presumably is a lost cause) who have strayed to such homeware and furniture rivals as Dunelm, a £ 2.9 billion company set up in 1979 and Wayfair, a giant American online operation now fast expanding in the UK, thanks to its tech expertise.
As part of its recovery plan, John Lewis says that it will be turning some of the unwanted space in oxford Street and other stores into housing.
This will be an opportunity to live above the shop.
For some John Lewis lovers, this arrangement would not be too close for comfort, but prove to be their ideal home.