stylegurrl
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2003
- Messages
- 1,452
- Reaction score
- 3
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005540432,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/marks/story/0,14708,1648533,00.html
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]M&S hits the catwalk in style[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor
Wednesday November 23, 2005
The Guardian
[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The champagne flowed freely, with scant regard for the tender hour; the explanatory notes placed on each seat alluded grandly to waking up on a Monday "in a Katharine Hepburn kind of mood"; the lights went down a respectably fashionable 20 minutes late. But this was not the latest collection from Stella McCartney or Donna Karan, but the unveiling of next year's spring and summer womenswear by Marks & Spencer.
The message was clear: M&S is back in fashion. After a tough couple of years M&S has had a run of good news: a hugely successful ad campaign starring Twiggy in That Cardigan; a 20% rise in profits; and a rapprochement between chief executive Stuart Rose and Per Una designer George Davies, who left the company in October but returned three weeks later. The company is determined to build on this newly positive mood, and womenswear - the heart of the M&S brand - is the key to success.
This autumn's well-received collection is the first under the control of Kate Bostock, brought in by Rose from George at Asda, who previously worked at Next. Bostock's vision for M&S, she said yesterday, is to tap into a desire for "grown-up fashion" which is not being met by the youth-orientated high street stores. "All our customers want fashion. What is happening on the catwalk is relevant to the M&S customer now."
Proof that the M&S customer does indeed want fashion is provided by the huge success this autumn of culottes and cropped trousers, which have outsold all other styles of trousers. On the back of this success, the 26-strong in-house design team have included a range of short trousers - from hotpants to tailored city shorts to sailor-style culottes - in the spring range. The show opened with a series of bold, graphic swimsuits with cut-out details - again, a clear signal that M&S intends to be a go-to store for fashion buys as well as basics. No one clear direction for next season's fashion emerged from the recent catwalk shows, beyond a move toward a cleaner, less cluttered silhouette and a predominance of white.
In the absence of a strong catwalk lead to follow, the collection instead took inspiration from a selection of recent greatest hits of the catwalk: there was a belted, hourglass pinstripe dress that nodded to Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress; a sunray-pleated dress that echoed Alexander McQueen's much-photographed version (McQueen's was apple green; M&S's is black); a black, beaded, bias-cut evening dress; and a soft-shouldered oatmeal-coloured jacket that hinted at Marni.
There were plenty of reliable summer basics: a well-cut navy suede blazer with a scalloped hem, an abundance of cute flat shoes - and an elegant, trailing silk scarf-cum-necklace which will fill the gap left by this season's hugely popular silver sequinned scarf. But not everything worked. A shiny gold bustier dress and a frightening pair of vertically striped monochrome cropped trousers looked like the kind of silly, throwaway fashion that is available cheaper elsewhere. But in the last year M&S has worked hard at being able to adapt to customer response: for instance, a new more reactive system of buying means that if one trouser shape isn't selling the fabric can be transferred to make more of a skirt shape that is. "Five years ago, you could put an item in store and sell it for months," said Bostock. "But it just doesn't work like that any more."
[/FONT]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/marks/story/0,14708,1648533,00.html
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]M&S hits the catwalk in style[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor
Wednesday November 23, 2005
The Guardian
[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The champagne flowed freely, with scant regard for the tender hour; the explanatory notes placed on each seat alluded grandly to waking up on a Monday "in a Katharine Hepburn kind of mood"; the lights went down a respectably fashionable 20 minutes late. But this was not the latest collection from Stella McCartney or Donna Karan, but the unveiling of next year's spring and summer womenswear by Marks & Spencer.
The message was clear: M&S is back in fashion. After a tough couple of years M&S has had a run of good news: a hugely successful ad campaign starring Twiggy in That Cardigan; a 20% rise in profits; and a rapprochement between chief executive Stuart Rose and Per Una designer George Davies, who left the company in October but returned three weeks later. The company is determined to build on this newly positive mood, and womenswear - the heart of the M&S brand - is the key to success.
This autumn's well-received collection is the first under the control of Kate Bostock, brought in by Rose from George at Asda, who previously worked at Next. Bostock's vision for M&S, she said yesterday, is to tap into a desire for "grown-up fashion" which is not being met by the youth-orientated high street stores. "All our customers want fashion. What is happening on the catwalk is relevant to the M&S customer now."
Proof that the M&S customer does indeed want fashion is provided by the huge success this autumn of culottes and cropped trousers, which have outsold all other styles of trousers. On the back of this success, the 26-strong in-house design team have included a range of short trousers - from hotpants to tailored city shorts to sailor-style culottes - in the spring range. The show opened with a series of bold, graphic swimsuits with cut-out details - again, a clear signal that M&S intends to be a go-to store for fashion buys as well as basics. No one clear direction for next season's fashion emerged from the recent catwalk shows, beyond a move toward a cleaner, less cluttered silhouette and a predominance of white.
In the absence of a strong catwalk lead to follow, the collection instead took inspiration from a selection of recent greatest hits of the catwalk: there was a belted, hourglass pinstripe dress that nodded to Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress; a sunray-pleated dress that echoed Alexander McQueen's much-photographed version (McQueen's was apple green; M&S's is black); a black, beaded, bias-cut evening dress; and a soft-shouldered oatmeal-coloured jacket that hinted at Marni.
There were plenty of reliable summer basics: a well-cut navy suede blazer with a scalloped hem, an abundance of cute flat shoes - and an elegant, trailing silk scarf-cum-necklace which will fill the gap left by this season's hugely popular silver sequinned scarf. But not everything worked. A shiny gold bustier dress and a frightening pair of vertically striped monochrome cropped trousers looked like the kind of silly, throwaway fashion that is available cheaper elsewhere. But in the last year M&S has worked hard at being able to adapt to customer response: for instance, a new more reactive system of buying means that if one trouser shape isn't selling the fabric can be transferred to make more of a skirt shape that is. "Five years ago, you could put an item in store and sell it for months," said Bostock. "But it just doesn't work like that any more."
[/FONT]
