Marks and Spencer Best of British range

[Clifford]

While I'm here has anyone seen the new Best of British range at M&S, launched to some fanfare the other week?

They're only offering this capsule collection online and in a handful of (mainly London) stores, and given that I live at the other end of the motorway I'm not going to get the chance to check it out in person. What I see on their website looks amazing and a real departure for good old M&S - suits by Cheshire Bespoke, shoes by Joseph Cheaney - although the price tags seem to match the quality of the names.

Anyway, if any London or Edinburgh-based chaps have seen this stuff 'in the flesh' (in the cloth?) I'd be grateful for your impressions.

 

[Big Bob]

I've just had a quick look and my opinion is White Elephant for those prices you can have the real McCoy not something from the High Street. I predict a massive failure.

 

[Clifford]

I've just bought a shawl from their womenswear collection for my fiancee's birthday. It's classically stylish, English-made, and looks like good quality, so I was happy to pay a little more that you'd normally expect.

I'm kind of in two minds about the rest of the collection, especially the menswear. Everything in it *is* the genuine article from top-notch manufacturers, but you'd expect a *bit* of a discount for buying them from M&S - for example on the Cheaney shoes, which seem to be exactly the same sort of price on the latter's website.

Overall though I think that this is a good move from M&S. Sure, it's a small capsule collection with limited sizes and availability (so either way it won't have much of an impact on their bottom line). But it's an important signal that they want to offer some excellent quality, indigenously-made clobber alongside the Far Eastern-manufactured low-end stuff.

 

[CelticRoots]

Re: RE: Marks and Spencer Best of British range

I've just bought a shawl from their womenswear collection for my fiancee's birthday. It's classically stylish, English-made, and looks like good quality, so I was happy to pay a little more that you'd normally expect.

I'm kind of in two minds about the rest of the collection, especially the menswear. Everything in it *is* the genuine article from top-notch manufacturers, but you'd expect a *bit* of a discount for buying them from M&S - for example on the Cheaney shoes, which seem to be exactly the same sort of price on the latter's website.

Overall though I think that this is a good move from M&S. Sure, it's a small capsule collection with limited sizes and availability (so either way it won't have much of an impact on their bottom line). But it's an important signal that they want to offer some excellent quality, indigenously-made clobber alongside the Far Eastern-manufactured low-end stuff.

It's a good idea in theory but you can't expect to represent the country in that way successfully whilst simultaneously locking out most of the population price wise.

Looking through their collection I think they're way out of touch with what's going on in society.

It would have been a better idea in my opinion to commission collections from the featured brands as cost effectively as possible. That way more people would be able to afford the pieces and wouldn't get a slight taste of resentment at not having the means to own british made goods of a decent quality.

I doubt it will be a success. Nice stuff though.