Lisa ARMSTRONG
Look for those ultra special items and start planning next year’s diary, says Lisa Armstrong
If Monday’s stampede back to the shops proved anything it’s that for some, the lure of a bargain trumps fear. People might be frightened to congregate at the school gates, but they’re courageous in the queues outside John Lewis. The funny thing is that in many instances, the current discounts aren’t as big as many had expected. But that’s because like many things that modern life hasn’t made teeny tiny, 21st-century sales bargains had become outsize whoppers: 70 per cent at the start of a sale, climbing to 80 per cent towards the end.
As a business strategy, it was straight out of the Mr Bean manual. Pile it way too high, then slash the prices just as demand surges. If things had carried on much longer like that, they’d be paying us to take the stuff off their hands.
Or burning it. Oops. They already tried that. This summer, like just about everything else, the sales are slightly different.
It’s not that they aren’t happening, but they’re starting later and slightly more modestly. At the top end, matchesfashion.com went on sale a fortnight ago, with discounts of up to 50 per cent, rather than the whopping 70 per cent of ye olden days (last Christmas). Liberty is nearer the mark with 60 per cent reductions. Harrods went on sale on its website last Thursday (it opens an outlet store in London’s Westfield at the start of July). If Monday’s stampedes back to non-essential retail are repeated, I think Boris and Matt can take it that the social distancing game is up.
If the discounts seem less desperate than a year ago, that’s because in some cases, there’s less stock to offload. As soon as lockdown was announced, many
retailers cancelled whatever they could from their summer orders (in some cases causing considerable trauma to the cash flow of their designers and suppliers). Others went into sale at the start of lockdown, taking the opportunity to shift stock from past seasons at rock-bottom prices. Early discounting attracted a surge of visits to websites such as Mango. One industry insider says Mango’s own management were surprised at the demand for certain items throughout lockdown, even at full price (I can testify to this: a pair of dungarees I added to my wishlist have now sold out twice).
But here’s an interesting twist: smaller labels are considering the radical step of not reducing prices of some of their classic, “timeless” and trans-seasonal pieces at all – or at least not until the end of winter. That might seem like a con if you’re used to everything being tossed into the bargain bin at the end of its supposed season. But in the long term this could be a positive move towards ending the crazy timewarped system that devalued clothes that had only been on the shop floor a few weeks and resulted in so much waste, with millions of us lured into buying “bargains” we never wore. Gucci has already announced that it plans to reduce waste and abandon the outdated “springsummer”, “autumnwinter” labelling, with their built-in sell-bydates, and focus on designing two collections a year that address the realities of changeable weather conditions in any given six months. Good idea. A thoughtfully designed, expertly crafted dress isn’t like a pint of milk with an inevitable sell-by date.
We should all hope that others follow Gucci – for sanity and the planet’s sake. Natalie Kingham, buying director at matchesfashion.com, says her peers across the industry have been discussing ways of making the sales shorter, sharper and later than we’ve all grown accustomed to. We’ll see how that pans out. As businesses inevitably fold in the next year, there will be some hefty “fire sales”. But why wait ghoulishly for that, when the pickings may be scrappy and full of stuff you’ll never wear? For now, there are big savings to be had on Big Event pieces – Ascot dresses, wedding hats, Serpentine summer party dresses and party shoes – not because they’re an unflattering colour or a dodgy cut, but because no one is going to Big Events. Fifty per cent off a high-ticket item represents a worthwhile saving. So if you find something you love, and can see yourself wearing it to all those postponed celebrations over the next few years, there are some serious deals to be done.