Camilla Tominey Why I’m not enjoying M&S’S Willoughby ef fect
It’s great news for M&S that Holly’s range sells out so quickly – but not for the rest of us, says Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor
I once bought a loud, magenta cashmere polo neck from M&S on the basis that it was once worn by Holly Willoughby. So I’m all for Single White Femaling the celebrities of Instagram.
As This Morning’s resident royal expert, I’ve worked with “the Willoughbooby” for many years, and she will forever remain my wardrobe Wonder Woman.
But if Marks is going to tantalise us with Holly’s Must-haves – an “edit” of 15 of her favourite pieces from the store’s denim collection, including skinny jeans, a frill-detail shirt and even a boiler suit – can it at least have the decency to order enough in?
The latest selection was hailed a success when it sold out within five minutes of hitting the shelves last month, which perhaps tells us everything that’s going wrong with the UK’S leading knickers merchant.
For M&S has long been a serial offender when it comes to selling out of the size everyone wants, while stocking too many of the sizes no one can fit into.
A recent trip to St Michael’s, as my late grandmother used to call her spiritual retail home, is a case in point.
I went looking for a plain white T-shirt for my husband. Notwithstanding my other half ’s seeming inability to maintain his own wardrobe, you wouldn’t have thought it that difficult to find said item in size L from Britain’s go-to wardrobe staples store. I mean, they call it Your M&S, which surely suggests that it is supposed to stock clothes that fit the average Brit, as opposed to the inhabitants of Lilliput or, indeed, Land of the Giants. Yet could I find this most basic of items in sizes that fit 99 per cent of British men? Could I heck.
As ever, the shelves were full of XSS (because no one buys them, bar the little bloke from Austin Powers) or XXL – which is great if you like your T-shirt to double up as a parachute.
A friend tells me it is the same with suits, which are rarely available in the standard sizes 42 or 44. Will this size 38 do, madam? Er, no, because I am not married to Prince. Would this 46 fit your husband? Only if he is planning to wear it to a fancy dress party dressed as Winston Churchill.
And don’t even get me started on bras. Who knew size 30G even existed? M&S: the go-to store for women unable to play a guitar.
At the time of writing, a search of Holly’s Denim Edit on the M&S website reveals that there are only two size 12s, 16s and 18s of the boiler suit left (size 10 has already sold out), while the trainers are only available in 3, 3.5 or 7.5 (well, at least that’s Coco the Clown sorted…). Almost all of the stripy tops have gone, bar the red and white one, on account of most women not wanting to dress as a lighthouse.
Had the M&S buyers not predicted that this eminently likeable size-12 trendsetter, with her 100zillion Instagram followers – might have prompted a rush on denim ruffle shirts?
Of course, the same thing happened when the somewhat less endearing but no less fashionable Alexa Chung launched an M&S range in 2016 (items from which are now available at a huge mark-up on ebay). While some of the designs were dubbed “weird and unwearable” by shoppers, there were a couple of standout pieces, including a brown suede A-line cowgirl skirt.
The only trouble was, the deluxe £199 item was only made available in the best-performing stores, where it promptly sold out after 3,500 potential buyers put their names on a waiting list. Waiting list? This is M&S, not the continuing interest queue for Queen Elizabeth’s, Barnet.
Funnily enough, us ordinary women do not have the time or energy to go on an Indiana Jones-style hunt for whatever the fashion pages deem to be the next high street holy grail. That is why we go online, in our pyjamas, with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on in the background.
But, even then, we are thwarted with those frustrating red “out of stock” messages or that even more exasperating “Oops, something has gone wrong” pop-up. Something has gone wrong, all right… with the average retail buyer’s arithmetic.
While I may not be down with the catwalk kids when it comes to “woke” white professing to be the “new black”, I’m not so naive I don’t realise that M&S did this on purpose.
As any trendy type in an oversized overcoat will tell you, these stores consciously under-order the key fashion pieces in any collection because what they really want is for you to go into their shops looking for X, but end up buying Y.
Which perhaps explains why I recently went into my local M&S to buy a boiler suit, and came home with a microwaveable lasagne.
Buyers apparently regard overstocked shelves as the “kiss of death” for any fashion line, which is why the likes of M&S only release limited numbers of their trendiest clothes to a select group of their biggest flagship stores.
Put simply, you’re more likely to find a snow leopard roaming through a regional branch of M&S than spot anything from Holly’s Denim Edit, let alone something in your size.
No wonder there were recent protests outside an M&S in Felixstowe, although I gather this was more of a response to the cumulative effect of the planned closure of 100 stores by 2022 and its effect on high streets across Britain. I do hope the “radical” five-year transformation the company has planned includes a long, hard look at sizing and stocking, not least when it comes to celebrity-backed collections.
I’ll happily take to shopping centres armed with placards, if necessary. What do we want? Fewer petites, the right size pants and Percy Pigs! When do we want them? Before they’ve all sold out!
I went into my M&S for the boiler suit – left with a microwave lasagne