I’M OLD-SCHOOL AND I MISS A HABERDASHERY

As department stores vanish from our cities, I think back to the classics – John Lewis and House of Fraser to name a couple – with a real sense of nostalgia

Upbeat consumer news: Marks & Spencer is opening 20 new shops in the UK. True, 12 are just food halls, but eight fullrange ones isn’t bad. It comes at a time when high street stores are frequently closing. Indeed, Markies is bucking its own trend, since only last year the company announced it was reducing the number of full-line stores by 67 to 180 by early 2026.

I’ve no head for figures, but the strategy seems to be to close stores and also open them. You do the maths.

I’ll be candid with you here and confess I’m a fan of department stores. Markies only just comes into that category, being not quite in the glittering, massive, Edwardian-style tradition of John Lewis, Jenners and House of Fraser.

Then there were locally loved emporia, such as Esslemont and Mackintosh in Aberdeen, that closed and remain much missed. Some of the new Markies stores will be in former Debenhams sites. Like Markies, some Debenhams shops never seemed like full-scale, traditional department stores, partly I think because they were too well-lit.

I like my department stores dark and cosy, full of nooks and crannies, and weird but with lovely departments such as haberdashery. English poet John Betjeman said that, when the end of the world threatened, he wanted to be in the haberdashery department of Peter Jones (the early John Lewis store in yonder London) “because nothing unpleasant could ever happen there”.

The best department stores are, or were, cosy and comforting, perhaps particularly at Christmas. They spoke of opulence, choice, civilisation, and a feeling that everything was right with the world. They were more than stores. They were refuges, and perhaps remain so for folk seeking warmth. Although from the peasantry, my mum and her mates used to meet weekly for tea and cakes at posh Jenners in Edinburgh. They’d dress nicely and have a good old chinwag, remembering times past (they used to work in the same office).

For my part, I loved wandering the various departments of John Lewis in Edinburgh and at the now closed one in Aberdeen. That closure hurt. I’ve fond memories of shopping there.

More recently, admittedly in smaller branches of Markies, I must say I’ve been disappointed in the men’s departments, which seem to stock just two sizes, such as medium and XXL. Nothing in between. I’d call my size “ordinary”, which is usually “large”, as medium is small, and small is microscopic. XL is sometimes do-able, while XXL and beyond is well out of my league.

I think the lack of choice was because they almost expected you, in store, just to feel the quality and order online. I think that’s a mistake. How many of us have impulse-bought clothes? Answer: all of us. It’s no wonder these men’s departments are almost always empty.

That said, Markies stuff is still good. I have duds many years old, including one jacket that’s seen about 25 winters. Not that I’m in the companies’ pockets or anything. I’ve slated all these stores in the past, not least Waitrose, John Lewis’s class-based supermarket chain.

But, by and large, I believe big shops are good. Big shops with loads of departments, not least a haberdashery. I never bought from one, but took comfort in knowing they were there.

I BELIEVE BIG SHOPS ARE GOOD. BIG SHOPS WITH LOADS OF DEPARTMENTS, NOT LEAST A HABERDASHERY

OLD FAVOURITE: Locally loved emporia, such as Esslemont and Mackintosh in Aberdeen, are still missed.