We went to the Marks & Spencer press day last week, to see the summer 2010 range and we loved the dresses and lingerie. The idea of these events is to present the range in the best possible way to the press, usually in trended stories, so editors can get excited and pick out the best shapes quickly. The clothes always look lovely, nicely ironed, carefully hung on not-too-crowded rails and very enticingly mixed together, I’ve often come out of a brand’s press day thinking ‘I’ll buy ALL of that when it hit’s the shops’.
However, when it hits the shops about 3-6 months later, it often doesn’t look anywhere near as good, crammed into a packed store and almost impossible to find. Hmmm, might that press show idea be a good way to entice proper customers to buy?
Well, it’s not easy for a store like M&S, with the volume they sell, to spread stuff out so thinly, but we do think that they could massively improve the way they present stock to us customers, how about a trended pop-up shop at the front of the store? Or fabulously styled mannequins in all the best stories in one big group somewhere with a store map so we can find the best bits easily, without getting lost in all those different brands? Just a thought.
So, the highlights were the chat we had with the head of lingerie (coming in part two) and the dresses. We loved the short sleeved silk print dress which featured a digital blur of stripes in ochre, cobalt, turquoise and navy, a perfect work-ish or smart dress for summer. The satin bubble-hemmed emerald dress, again in silk, which Jane reckoned was the perfect shade of green for the season.
From the Per Una range we liked the sleeveless, belted dress with chiffon yoke and mustard print splodges and the very wearable navy sleeveless party frock with embellished front trim. There were sequins everywhere, some very pretty and some wearable use of lace. Nice to see styles that were not too super-tight-body-con or super short, roll on summer, let’s just hope we can find them in store.
