Marks & Spencer is to trial the opening of boutique-style fashion and beauty stores, starting with a new opening at Battersea Power Station this autumn.
The new store at Battersea will focus on showcasing the best of the high street giant’s fashion range for men and women (with an emphasis on its premium lines) as well as an edit of its beauty officer.
CEO Stuart Machin said the trial store would “showcase the best of M&S clothing and beauty at outstanding value” and, if successful, further similar formats would open across the country, according to The Times.
The move comes amid a resurgence in the performance of Marks & Spencer’s fashion offer. The company delivered a 58% leap in profit before tax to £672.5 million in the year to 30 March 2024. Overall sales were up 19.3% to £13 billion while the turnaround in fashion was evident with a 5.3% increase in turnover at Clothing & Home.
Womenswear director Maddy Evans (formerly of Topshop) and clothing chief Richard Price (formerly of Tesco) have been credited with injecting fashionability and better quality into the M&S fashion offer, as well as broadening its appeal to a wider age group. A recent collaboration with Sienna Miller (main image), the face of its brand and a well-known style icon, was a big hit with customers, for instance.
Marks & Spencer Bath
M&S has also been working on a widespread store rotation programme under Machin and chairman Archie Norman. It has closed a number of older town and city centre locations and has opened larger, more modern full range stores in prime shopping centres and out of town locations.
Norman insisted, however, that the company was not abandoning town and city centres at its recent AGM and pointed to its investment in two new stores in the centre of Bath and Bristol as evidence of this. Norman said the intensity of its store investment programme was due to underinvestment in the past.
Battersea Power Station
The new clothing and beauty stores will be smaller in format than a typical store and will be simply branded Marks & Spencer. By siting the stores in locations, such as Battersea Power Station, the retailer will be accessing a more affluent customer base and pitting its fashion offer against rivals such as Zara, Uniqlo, Jigsaw, Mango and Massimo Dutti among many others.
Meanwhile its beauty offer is now considered to be one of the best on the high street featuring a wide selection of its own brand ranges alongside major names, such as Nuxe, Philip Kingsley, Stila, Origins, L’Occitance, Murad and more.