My dressing down daze
BEEN to M&S lately? A proper branch, not just one of their food shops. Has the transformation left you almost speechless? Me neither. Odd, that. Don’t get me wrong, my local branch hasn’t exactly gone to rack and ruin. It’s still bright and clean and everyone’s nice and friendly.
I just mean I haven’t noticed any significant change.The food section is still downstairs, the furnishings on floor two, and to get to the men’s bit I still have to wade through ladies’ pants.
And yet apparently there have been radical changes in the company’s stores nationwide. According to M&S: HOWTHEY GOT BACK ON TOP (C5, 8pm), “a bold new strategy” has “re-energised its brand”. Specifically, there’s been a “return to fashion relevance, with modern designs, highly desirable women’s and menswear and glamorous celebrity collaborations”.
And before I cry: “Has there heck!”, the programme points out how well M&S has been doing of late, reporting huge profits in 2023.
Clearly it’s just me, then. I’m obviously walking around their stores in a daze, failing to spot all this bold, new, highly desirable stuff.
Having said that, I don’t think it’s aimed at people like me.
Those celebrity collaborations have been with the likes of Sienna Miller and Hannah Waddingham. Hannah’s dress, featured in the latest Christmas ad, apparently “went viral” and sold online at a rate of one every minute.
Now, I’ve owned M&S socks which, after years of loyal service, have threatened to go pretty viral themselves.
But that’s not the sort of viral the programme is referring to. This kind of viral is the internetty kind, meaning lots of people have gone: “I like Hannah Waddingham’s dress, even though I’m not that familiar with Hannah Waddingham, was she in S Club 7..?” and have not only bought one but have alerted lots of others to this dress’s existence, who’ve then done likewise.
Which is all very well, but also a bit odd, don’t you think? Don’t people who wear dresses (previously known as “women”) like their own to stand out, rather than look like everyone else’s? Or has that changed now?
Also, when it says it sold one every minute, over what period of time was that? This ad first ran at 10.30am on November 2. Assuming it ran until 6pm on Christmas Eve, that means there are 75,330 Hannah Waddingham dresses now floating around. Which I guess is possible, but I’m not aware I’ve even seen one.
Still, what do I know? Like I say, I’m in a daze half the time.Who’s to say I didn’t go online and inadvertently buy one myself?
That mulled wine doesn’t half go to my head.