Will You Be Wearing Your M&S Lunch?
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Richard remembers when lunch was a cheese and pickle sandwich and getting your head down on the desk for a quick 30 minutes. Tracee thinks that a good lunch is Red Bull and Coke and a session on SHAREit, downloading pictures of her mates doing something inexplicable to a baguette at the Swag Ibiza Club. Michelle is all over the Malagueta pulled chicken soft corn taco and a couple of lobster and salsa rolls from M&S. People are different.
However different they may be, there was a time when under every soft Italian linen suit was a pair of M&S briefs and (in the winter only, of course) snugly fitting into a pair of Ferragamo loafers was a pair of Marks & Spencer socks. You'd rather die than being spotted in a Blue Harbour t-shirt, but you can certainly handle an M&S BLT an hour or so before dinner. There have been well publicised 'buying errors' at the company, which have led to accusations of 'frumpiness' in their clothes range. The company is 135 years old, and its baffling and complicated logistics and distribution chain feels like it's much older. Walk into one of Marks' updated chic market stall-style foodhalls and you could almost be in an up-market Whole Foods store. But pop next door into the clothes department and it is as if you won third prize in a seance competition and been dragged back to the 70s, shopping with your late auntie Rita. No-one can seem to solve the puzzle that is M&S, and 7,000 employees are finally paying the price for it.
This morning (Tuesday 18 August) it has been announced that cuts are being made to almost 10 per cent of the group’s 78,000-strong workforce as part of a strategy to “streamline the business both at stores and management level”, as it contends with the changes to the industry caused by the pandemic ... and the fact that its model is clearly wrong for the modern retail environment and, lovely as their ready-to-eat avocados are, the company just isn't fit for purpose. M&S said that it hoped many of the reductions will be made through voluntary redundancies and early retirement as it cuts jobs in its support centre, regional management and in its UK stores ...
... but, really, who are they trying to kid? “These proposals are an important step in becoming a leaner, faster business set up to serve changing customer needs,” said chief executive Steve Rowe, sporting a pair of Ermenegildo Zegna fine cotton trousers. Spokespeople couldn't be drawn on what he was wearing underneath. In May of this year the NTI newsroom reported that the group was seriously examining its headcount as part of an effort to save ￡500 million to offset the effects of ... the pandemic / a seriously outdated 'fashion' retail brand.
Meanwhile, in the NTI newsroom, Michelle is sucking gently on an M&S avocado, cucumber and lime smoothie whilst picking nonchalantly at some smoked salmon rafts. When asked if she was wearing M&S, she said that only if we jogged her arm as she was eating and spilled it down her Miu Miu cropped gingham cotton-blend straight-legged pants.