M&S is making its mark
By LIZ JONES
Last updated at 12:55 16 November 2006
Fashion guru LIZ JONES, a firm supporter of Tesco clothing, has finally been won over by Marks & Spencer:
Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, should have been in a good mood yesterday morning at the launch of his store's spring/summer collections.
Gallery
The Marks and Spencer Wedding Dress
The week before, it had been reported that more than £700million had been added to M&S's share value, with profits for the six months to the end of September up 32 per cent.
But he was actually quite cross. With me.
'Why are you always writing that Tesco clothing is the best on the High Street?' he asked me. 'How can you possibly think that?'
Well, I said, my mouth full of delicious M&S fig, and with one hand grasping my flute of M&S sparkling rosé, it is up to you to convince me otherwise.
For starters, I pointed out that although the new womenswear had been carefully grouped for members of the fashion press into distinct stories - Modern Seventies, Romantic, Future Organic, Future Tribes - making it easy to spot which top would go with what bottoms, which pieces would look great worn in layers and so on, inevitably, the clothes will be all jumbled up, lumped together only by label (Autograph, Limited and main range).
Women need all the help we can get when putting looks together in our lunch hour, while also having to buy food.
But, for the patient, there is much that will be worth rootling out in the spring. The most exciting news is that, for the first time, M&S is bringing out a small line of bridal wear.
The wedding dress that closed the morning's catwalk show was stunning: simple yet voluminous, in ivory duchesse satin, with a discreet line of gold thread below the bust.
With all the wedding dresses coming in at under £150, as well as a range of empire-line bridesmaid's dresses, you will be sure to see a long queue of very stressed women outside the flagship stores when the collection goes on sale in March.
New, too, is a matching set of stretch satin lingerie: £20 for the basque, £28 for the bra, £10 for the thong. At that price you will be able to go somewhere much nicer on honeymoon.
My main gripe with M&S has always been that the clothes are often too ambitiously fashionable - let's get the basics for a working woman's capsule wardrobe right first - and that fabrics have too often been synthetic mixes.
The biggest leap forward for next spring is indeed the improvement in quality of the fabrics. I loved a black and white wrap cotton dress, a soft leather coat and a green and orange jersey drop-waist sun dress, for example; Biba-esque prints are strong, too.
Lovely and new for next year are the metallic linens - made up as city shorts, tulip skirts with a bow detail at the waist, and lightweight coats.
Must-haves are sure to be a silver metallic shift (£69 which avoids being sacklike with clever use of a belt (throw away the one that comes with it and buy a thin, tan leather one), and a gold metallic brocade summer coat with sleeves reaching just below the elbow, at a sensible £89.
I loved, too, a classy silk skirt teamed with a soft mini trench, a green jersey wrap top under a nutty brown leather jacket, and an olive silk with coffee linen trousers. Long marl grey cardies with ribbon ties were lovely, too. It was hard to fault the menswear, where fabric has also improved: a Timothy Everest light grey summer suit felt noticeably softer.
And while last summer I had hated the swimwear and the beach wear - awful, synthetic fabrics, with far too much foam in the bra cups - I found the swimwear vastly improved, in simple shapes and hot colours.
Boy shorts cost about £12, bikini bottoms about £6, and they can all be bought separately. There are also lots of sheer kaftans speckled with coins and sequins, for just £35.
Lingerie continues to improve, particularly in the more upmarket and muted Autograph range, and I have to hand it to M& S's research and development department: it is always coming up with new technology to smooth our lumps and bumps.
A new fabric from Japan cleverly combines lace and satin, meaning there is no longer a need for a seam, while the famous 'Magic' big pants are now much more sheer. I still think the bras are too foamy, though, and the camisoles and T-shirts too short in the body. Who wants to expose a two-inch strip of tummy?
The catwalk show, in front of an audience that included house models Erin O'Connor and Laura Bailey (who seems to grow bonier every time I see her), was impressive, but some garments were just too slight to warrant an appearance on the runway: a blue silk dress looked like a nightie, while a horrid pinstripe waistcoat over a blue shirt looked as though an employee from a pizza parlour had wandered in by mistake.
And the shoes! I am sorry, but I really do not like M&S shoes. The green suede wedges with a strap and a black patent wedge made even the models look ugly, while the gold kitten heel sandals looked cheap, and spoilt the wedding dress. Only the flat sandals with a glittery strap passed muster.
