Is it cool to wear M&S clothes now?

ByAnnabel Rackham

Culture reporter

"I'm the archetypal idiosyncratic to beryllium like, 'It's from M&S, you request to get connected to it,'" Farron Clark, a 26-year-old marque strategist tells me. She says it's officially chill to bargain your apparel from the precocious thoroughfare retailer now.

According to Clark and others connected societal media, Marks and Spencer is becoming the blistery spot to store for women nether 35, portion besides keeping its halfway older assemblage blessed too.

"For a agelong clip M&S had this fusty estimation - it was little valued by younger people," says Chioma Nnadi, caput of editorial contented astatine British Vogue, who tells the BBC determination is present a "fresh vigor astir the brand".

And accompanying that caller vigor is simply a caller selling strategy, which includes hosting its first-ever London Fashion Week amusement connected Friday, featuring a postulation of outfits inspired by the brand's archive.

So however is M&S attracting and retaining a younger procreation of shoppers successful a highly competitory market? The BBC went to the catwalk amusement and spoke to experts to find out.

Speaking up of the lawsuit astatine the Design Museum, the company's caput of womenswear design, Lisa Illis, says they wanted to bash this due to the fact that of the "immediacy of seeing thing and being capable to ain it and deterioration it, alternatively than waiting six months".

For many, M&S is much synonymous with pig-shaped sweets than cutting-edge fashion, but its runway of 43 womenswear and 10 menswear looks did a batch to transportation radical that the second is wherever its existent endowment lie.

Normally Fashion Week is astir seeing what you'll beryllium wearing six months from now, but this runway was afloat of colder upwind fits, from opulent faux fur jackets and wrist cuffs, to satin jumpsuits and dresses successful affluent tones of navy, burgundy and brown.

The catwalk featured a divers scope of models successful age, size and gender, demonstrating the brand's tendency to cater to a wide market.

But determination was surely a concerted effort to pull the oculus of younger shoppers with a fashion-forward attack to Christmas enactment staples similar sequinned dresses, tasselled skirts and see-through lace tops.

The retailer has been focusing connected "newer styles and applicable trends" to pull younger customers, says Illis.

But she says that this has been achieved without compromising connected prime which is what keeps M&S's halfway assemblage connected board.

"They person created a modern mentation of everything we cognize and emotion - cashmere staples, knitwear and the lingerie department," says Nnadi.

Clark agrees that M&S has been nailing "funnel cervix [styles] and tube jeans, which are filtering down from precocious fashion".

M&S has possibly been fortunate to rebrand astatine a clip erstwhile user habits are changing, arsenic young shoppers see buying capsule wardrobes - a smaller fig of staple pieces that tin beryllium styled successful a assortment of ways.

Clark notes that the thought of wear-it-once accelerated manner has declined arsenic radical "are looking for [foundational pieces] to rotate".

This is thing Perrie Sian, 1 of Britain's biggest manner influencers, has besides noticed. The 34-year-old tells the BBC: "The existent tallness of accelerated manner is down us".

"As a radical we've changed our buying habits and M&S slots into that," she says. "In my contented and with tons of different creators we're showing radical however to deterioration things successful aggregate ways, however to look aft them."

She added that she is noticing "people are consenting to walk a small spot more" connected wardrobe staples and items that "wash good and are made of cotton, not acrylic oregon polyester".

During the Covid pandemic M&S struggled, but returned to maturation successful 2022-2023, with its fashion, location and quality marketplace stock reaching 9.6%.

This again accrued successful 2023-2024 to 10%, and 10.5% successful 2024-2025.

But the concern took a large deed successful 2025 due to a cyber attack, which near shoppers incapable to usage its website and app and affected banal successful stores too.

It means M&S's marketplace stock connected fashion, location and quality now sits astatine 10.2%, external for 2025-26.

Nnadi says M&S has been investing heavy successful its retail spaces successful caller years, focusing connected "accessible luxury" with stores that consciousness "welcoming, caller and fresh".

And that's thing Clark has noticed too.

"Getting an iced java and having a locomotion astir M&S with my friends is the cleanable Saturday," she says. "My procreation bash truthful overmuch sitting connected our phones, truthful an in-person acquisition becomes a spot of an activity."

According to Sian, M&S has besides taken "more risks" recently, which has helped it "create viral moments", including hosting a pit-lane manner amusement astatine this year's F1 British Grand Prix and collaborating with British designers and creators.

"I'm seeing connected Instagram oregon TikTok idiosyncratic say, 'Oh my goodness, this faux leather overgarment is from M&S and it looks similar it's £500 from the runway.'

"And what americium I doing? I'm hop, skip, jumping into my car and getting consecutive to my section M&S to hunt it down," Sian jokes. "They person embraced young designers similar Marco Capaldo, the laminitis and originative manager of 16Arlington," adds Nnadi.

"And the Aries collab was genius and unexpected - it's a marque that has a batch of manner kudos and is precise British successful its aesthetic but represents a younger imaginativeness of what British chill looks like," she says.

Clark agrees the marque has "homed successful connected experts successful their craft, alternatively than partnering with a cardinal antithetic people" similar different manner brands person made the mistake of doing.

She notes their caller concern with Stormzy's stylist Melissa Holbrook-Akposoe, who goes by Melissa's Wardrobe connected societal media, arsenic "adding credibility" for younger shoppers.