How Marks and Spencer became the shop of the year

It went from being the heart of the British high street to being written off as a ‘frumpy has-been’... But as the retailer declares record profits with Gen-Zers raving about its clothes as much as its older customers. Zoë Beaty looks at the man behind the turnaround and how he has done it

After a cracking year, M&S has found its way firmly back into our hearts (Marks & Spencer)

It’s a rags-to-riches fairytale that became a byword for “British” – Marks & Spencer, the great national treasure of the high street, has seen through many lifetimes. Over the years it’s been a market stall, a penny bazaar, a triumphant success and a flailing retailer caught in between the luxury of Waitrose and Tesco Value. This year, however, a new era began for M&S.

Last month the retailer was crowned brand of the year by Marketing Week – a prestigious award – drawing to a close one of its most successful years in history. The month before that, in October, Marks & Spencer also won BrandZ’s 2024 UK brand of the year, reflecting a hard-earned, mammoth 38 per cent increase in brand equity.

“The ‘New In’ section is giving,” Glamour magazine declared in a feature titled “Marks & Spencer clothing is as good as the Insta girlies claim”, back in July. High praise.

But we didn’t need awards and headlines to tell us that – it’s obvious, isn’t it? You know a brand is doing well when it’s consistently the answer to “Where did you get that?” in offices, at parties and across the family dinner table.

This year’s key collaborations – Sienna Miller and, brilliantly, Bella Freud – set fashion TikTok flying into stores; resales on eBay and Vinted went through the roof, so much so that the collection caused sharp-tongued arguments on social media. They lasted for days.

Who can blame them? This year Marks & Spencer was No 1 in the market for womenswear – their highest market share at this time of year for 10 years. Achieving the retail holy grail of being a shop that mothers and their daughters want to shop in, they now sell a bra every two seconds (almost half of UK women now buy their bras from M&S; perhaps in part due to their longstanding successful collaboration with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley).

M&S knickers barely need mentioning – who could live without them? – but what’s impressive is their tenacity for innovation. In August they became the first retailer to launch stoma knickers. They sold 21,000 pairs in three months.

But it has taken more than a pair of pants to have created such a retail fairytale. And, for the real magic, we need to look to the store's CEO. Since taking the helm in 2022, Stuart Machin has launched the company into a whole new era. Machin, a child of divorce who was brought up by a single mother and his grandparents, is a perfect fit for M&S’s rags-to-riches history. He started in business by stacking shelves seven days a week, supporting his mother, an estate agent who was also working her way up the career ladder.

Collaborations with fashion icons such as Sienna Miller have taken TikTok by storm (Marks & Spencer)

In the top job, he’s just “built different”, staff say. He’s involved in everything from the length of buttonholes to how much salt is added to a new sandwich. He answers staff emails personally; he’s a people person, and adored by till staff and Joan Collins alike, apparently; he’s candid and charismatic, but also careful not to overpromise.

Strategically, Machin’s gone back to basics. Woven into his leadership are the strategies of past CEOs and an understanding of audience and decades of trends. This, maybe, is M&S the old school way with fresh eyes. Quality and value in equal parts – with a very British backstory.

The shop’s humble beginnings were anchored in hardship and tragedy. Michael Marks was its founder, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who arrived in Leeds in 1882 and walked between northern market towns carrying a wooden box. Marks didn’t speak much English so, inscribed on the box filled with his wares to sell was: “Don’t ask the price – it’s a penny.” Despite the language barrier, he quickly worked out what sold – higher quality goods than his competitor pedlars, selling tat, had on offer.

The business started to take off once he met Tom Spencer – a co-founder, who was financially savvy and more middle class than Marks. However, Spencer died just a few years later in 1905. Two years after that, Marks also passed away, both of them tragically young.

An M&S store in Holloway, London, photographed in 1914 (Getty)

It was then Michael Marks’ son, Simon, who fought to take control of the business – and it was Simon who would go on to make the Marks & Spencer name what it is now. He even named the spin-off line, St Michael, after his late dad.

During the Second World War, M&S staff clubbed together and paid for a Spitfire; they also started selling wine as the nation began to get a taste for it and even roller skates at one point. They changed with the times, investing in man-made fabrics as they became available. They were never the cheapest, but not a luxury brand either. As the economy improved and the decades ticked on, they became a destination for working-class families to afford better quality, without breaking tight budgets.

By the 1990s, with CEO Stuart Rose at the helm, M&S was peaking – big time. In 1997, just as Labour’s promise of social mobility began, pre-tax profits were up to £1bn. They were the first British retailer to achieve it, but it pre-eclipsed a sharp, almost fatal decline. Until 2001 the company had refused to allow the use of credit cards (except their own store card), and in the interim years, they’d lost the loyalty of their customer. Profits dropped to just £145m, in an ever-changing new millennium high street. Fighting off Arcadia Group owner Philip Green, who levelled an aggressive buyout campaign in 2004, was all they could do.

In 2014, again, despite food halls performing well, they faced criticism over their lacklustre womenswear and, in 2020, things took another downturn. Food sales had fallen to 3 per cent of the market share and, still, nobody wanted to buy their clothes from M&S. They were seen as dowdy, out of touch and couldn’t even get the basics right.

The retail giant has managed to turn their ailing fortunes around (Getty)

Two years earlier, then chief executive Steve Rowe had promised to “slash” the amount of store space dedicated to clothing ranges, in the company’s third round of store closures in a huge shake-up. As Covid hit, M&S recorded their first loss – of £87.6m – in history.

The interesting thing is, despite all of this, the Marks & Spencer brand still always felt innately trustworthy and treasured; the will was there – even if the product wasn’t. Like every sort of long-lasting love, waiting for the spark to reignite can be difficult, and at times feels like it has gone for good. But now in 2024, it’s back with the kind of passion and desire that hasn’t been seen for years.

What seems to have changed? M&S really seem to know their customer again, thanks to the ultimate designer team behind the scenes. Maddy Evans was promoted to the position of womenswear director in 2022, and has since made her focus “modern mainstream”: a customer who she describes as “not at the bleeding edge of fashion, but who wants to feel modern and “like she’s relevant in terms of what she’s got on and what her friends might be wearing as well.” The product, she says, should absolutely be one that gives her confidence and makes her feel stylish.

This year has seen them take more risks – releasing trend-led mid-season items, listening and accurately predicting what the modern woman wants to wear. Crucially, it’s clear that Michael Marks’s clever “goldilocks” legacy – “just enough” ranges and quality products that are priced ‘just right’ – is paying off under Machin’s direction.

Earn your stripes: an outfit from the Bella Freud collaboration (Marks & Spencer)

Fast-fashion decimated a high street offering affordable quality and, while M&S aren’t excluded from that market, they are reliably higher in standard for their price point. Whether it’s a revamped digital or bricks-and-mortar offering, they’re proving that fancy gimmicks or just jumping on one hot trend doesn’t cut it. Really, it’s about those talks around the table, among formidable teams, who work out that putting the customer first reaps rewards.

What has happened in the last year feels like just the beginning of M&S’s exciting new era. Recently the company confirmed it’s preparing to launch a new format store – a standalone, boutique-style branch at Battersea Power Station offering “curated” edits of womenswear, menswear and beauty. If it’s successful, Machin said, it could be the start of more fashion-only branches being opened around the UK.

Also in Machin’s sights is making Marks & Spencer a “go-to” destination for the “full family shop”. The big shop should feel experiential, Allan Ross, from the company press office says, “When customers come in to shop at M&S, we want it to feel like a food hall. It’s got the soul of a fresh market, but it runs like a supermarket.”

Another win has been getting the go-ahead to knock down and refurbish their flagship store on Oxford Street. Angela Rayner approved the development 18 months after chief executives were blocked by the previous government. Now, work will start on knocking down three buildings on Oxford Street to make way for a new 10-storey development, with a smaller M&S store and other office facilities.

And they’re just the plans we know about. Regardless of what comes next, after a cracking year, Marks & Spencer has found its way firmly back into our hearts. That very British anthem – ”You can’t beat a bit of M&S, can you?” – lives on to lead another generation into the food hall, truer than ever.