For most of its hundred-year history, Marks and Spencer occupied a quiet, reliable corner of British life — the place for sensible knitwear, not cultural conversation. Last Friday, the retailer stepped onto a London Fashion Week runway for the first time, a gesture that crystallized something already underway: a deliberate, patient reinvention aimed at a generation that had long dismissed the brand as their parents' domain. In an era when fast fashion is losing its grip and younger consumers are reaching for quality over novelty, M&S has found itself — perhaps improbably — on the right side of
M&S Transforms Its Image as Younger Shoppers Embrace High Street Retailer
Getting an iced coffee and having a walk around M&S with my friends is the perfect Saturday
Mark
So M&S hosted a Fashion Week show. Why does that matter? It's a retailer putting on a catwalk. Isn't that what fashion brands do?
Mimi
Not M&S. For decades, younger people saw it as their parents' store—sensible, safe, a bit old-fashioned. This show is M&S saying it can compete on style, not just quality. It's a signal.
Luke
But is the signal working? The market share numbers are interesting—it grew from 9.6% to 10.5%—but then a cyber attack in 2025 knocked it back to 10.2%. How much of that growth is real momentum versus a temporary bump?
Mimi
Fair point. The cyber attack is a real setback. But the sources—Vogue's editor, fashion influencers, younger shoppers themselves—all describe a genuine shift in how M&S is perceived. That's not just numbers.
Mark
What changed? Why now?
Mimi
Two things converged. First, M&S invested in modernizing its core strengths—cashmere, knitwear, basics—without abandoning them. Second, consumer habits shifted. Fast fashion is declining. People want capsule wardrobes, pieces that last, things made from cotton not polyester.
Luke
But who's saying that? Perrie Sian is a fashion influencer with an incentive to talk about sustainable shopping. Is that a trend or is that what influencers say?
Mimi
It's both. Sian is observing what she sees in her own content and among creators. That's real data from someone inside the space. But you're right—it's not a survey of all young shoppers.
Mark
The partnerships seem important. Marco Capaldo, Aries, Stormzy's stylist. Why those names specifically?
Mimi
They carry credibility with younger people. They're not celebrity endorsements; they're collaborations with people who have taste and influence in specific communities. It's M&S saying, "We know who matters to you."
Luke
And the viral moments—the F1 pit-lane show, the Instagram posts about jackets that look expensive but aren't. Are those organic or manufactured?
Mimi
Probably both. M&S is clearly orchestrating some of it. But the fact that people are talking about it, that Sian is actually driving to stores because of what she sees online—that suggests it's landing.
Mark
So what's the real test?
Mimi
Whether M&S can keep this going. The cyber attack hurt. The next recession could hurt more. And younger shoppers are fickle. But right now, for the first time in a long time, M&S feels like a place they want to be.
Luke
And we won't know if that's sustainable for at least another year or two of market share data.
The Pulse
- A retailer once synonymous with 'fusty' basics made its London Fashion Week debut, presenting 53 looks at the Design Museum in a clear signal that it is competing for cultural relevance, not just market share.
- The urgency is generational: M&S had been largely written off by under-35 shoppers, and every season that perception hardened was a season of lost loyalty that compounds over decades.
- The company is attacking the problem on multiple fronts — pit-lane fashion shows, collaborations with credible designers like 16Arlington and Aries, influencer partnerships, and redesigned stores built for browsing rather than just buying.
- Consumer habits are moving in M&S's direction: capsule wardrobes, sustainable basics, and a fatigue with disposable trend cycles have made quality knitwear and long-lasting cotton feel prescient rather than staid.
- Market share climbed steadily from 9.6% to 10.5% before a 2025 cyber attack clipped momentum, but the underlying trajectory suggests the rebrand is landing, not merely being announced.
- The open question is durability — whether viral moments and strategic partnerships can harden into lasting identity before the next disruption, economic or digital, tests how deep the new loyalty actually runs.
For most of its hundred-year history, Marks and Spencer occupied a quiet, reliable corner of British life — the place for sensible knitwear, not cultural conversation. Last Friday, the retailer stepped onto a London Fashion Week runway for the first time, a gesture that crystallized something already underway: a deliberate, patient reinvention aimed at a generation that had long dismissed the brand as their parents' domain. In an era when fast fashion is losing its grip and younger consumers are reaching for quality over novelty, M&S has found itself — perhaps improbably — on the right side of a cultural shift.
Marks and Spencer walked onto a London Fashion Week runway for the first time in its hundred-year history last Friday, presenting 43 womenswear and 10 menswear looks at the Design Museum — navy, burgundy, and brown layered with faux fur and satin, styled on models of varying ages and sizes. The message was deliberate: M&S is no longer the place your parents shop. It is becoming, improbably, the place your friends want to shop too.
Brand strategist Farron Clark, 26, says she now recommends M&S without irony. British Vogue's Chioma Nnadi observes a 'fresh energy' after years of a reputation younger shoppers had dismissed. The company's head of womenswear design explains the Fashion Week move as a way to collapse the usual six-month runway-to-retail lag — letting customers see something and own it immediately. The quieter work has been just as important: redesigned stores, modern silhouettes like funnel necks and barrel jeans, and partnerships with designers and influencers who carry real credibility with under-35 consumers.
The timing has helped. Fast fashion's dominance is waning, and people are building capsule wardrobes — smaller collections of versatile, lasting pieces — rather than chasing single-season trends. Influencer Perrie Sian has noticed the shift across her own content: audiences are willing to spend more on basics that wash well and endure. M&S, with its long history of quality knitwear and cashmere, suddenly looks prescient. The company has modernized those staples without abandoning them.
The numbers reflect genuine momentum. Market share in fashion, home, and beauty rose from 9.6% in 2022-2023 to 10.5% in 2024-2025, before a 2025 cyber attack — which disabled the website, app, and disrupted in-store stock — pulled it back to 10.2%. The trajectory before that disruption was real, not a blip.
What has accelerated the shift is M&S's willingness to create moments worth talking about: a pit-lane show at the British Grand Prix, collaborations with Marco Capaldo of 16Arlington and with Aries, and the addition of Stormzy's stylist as a social media presence with genuine pull among younger audiences. Clark notes that M&S has focused on 'experts in their craft' rather than scattering partnerships thinly — a discipline other fashion brands have failed to maintain.
The in-store experience has become part of the appeal too. Clark describes a Saturday afternoon at M&S with friends — iced coffee, browsing, treating it as an activity rather than a transaction. For a generation that lives largely on screens, a physical space worth moving through has become something almost novel. M&S is no longer fighting its reputation. It is building a new one, one catwalk show and strategic partnership at a time — and for now, it has managed something retailers rarely do: made itself relevant to a generation that had written it off.
Marks and Spencer walked onto a London Fashion Week runway for the first time in its hundred-year history last Friday, and the moment felt like a punctuation mark on something larger than a single catwalk show. The retailer, long synonymous with sensible basics and older shoppers, presented 43 womenswear and 10 menswear looks at the Design Museum—pieces in navy, burgundy, and brown, layered with faux fur and satin, styled on models of varying ages and sizes. It was a deliberate statement: M&S is no longer the place your parents shop. It is becoming, improbably, the place your friends want to shop too.
Farron Clark, a 26-year-old brand strategist, describes the shift plainly. She now tells people to buy from M&S without irony. Chioma Nnadi, head of editorial content at British Vogue, observes a "fresh energy around the brand" after years of what she calls a "fusty reputation" that younger people had largely dismissed. The company's head of womenswear design, Lisa Illis, explains the Fashion Week gambit as a way to collapse the usual six-month lag between runway and retail—to let customers see something and own it immediately. But the real work has been quieter: investing in store design, curating collections around modern silhouettes like funnel necks and barrel jeans, and partnering with designers and influencers who carry credibility with people under 35.
The timing has worked in M&S's favor. Consumer habits have shifted. Fast fashion's dominance is waning. People are building capsule wardrobes—smaller collections of versatile pieces they can wear multiple ways—rather than chasing trends that last a single season. Perrie Sian, a major British fashion influencer, has noticed this across her own content and that of other creators. People are willing to spend more on basics now, on items made from cotton that wash well and last. M&S, with its long history of quality knitwear, cashmere, and lingerie, suddenly looks prescient rather than outdated. The company has modernized those staples without abandoning them.
The numbers tell part of the story. M&S's market share in fashion, home, and beauty reached 9.6% in 2022-2023, climbed to 10% the following year, and hit 10.5% in 2024-2025. A cyber attack in 2025 knocked the company back—it disabled the website and app and disrupted in-store stock—bringing market share down to 10.2% for 2025-2026. But the trajectory before that attack showed genuine momentum, not a temporary blip.
What has accelerated the shift, though, is M&S's willingness to take risks and create moments worth talking about. The company hosted a pit-lane fashion show at the British Grand Prix. It collaborated with Marco Capaldo of 16Arlington and with Aries, a brand with fashion credibility and a younger sensibility. It brought on Melissa Holbrook-Akposoe, Stormzy's stylist, whose social media presence carries weight with the demographic M&S is chasing. These partnerships are selective—Clark notes that M&S has "homed in on experts in their craft" rather than scattering collaborations across dozens of names, a mistake other fashion brands have made.
The in-store experience matters too. Clark describes a Saturday afternoon at M&S with friends—grabbing an iced coffee, browsing, treating it as an activity rather than a transaction. For a generation that spends much of its time on phones, the physical retail space has become something almost novel: a place to be, to move through, to discover. Nnadi points to M&S's investment in store design, creating spaces that feel "welcoming, new and fresh," what the company frames as "accessible luxury."
Sian captures the momentum in a joke: she sees a faux leather jacket on Instagram or TikTok, learns it is from M&S, and drives to her local store to find it. The brand has created a feedback loop where younger shoppers feel permission to shop there, talk about it, and draw others in. M&S is no longer fighting its reputation; it is building a new one, one catwalk show and strategic partnership at a time. Whether that momentum survives the next cyber attack, the next economic downturn, or the next shift in what younger people decide is cool remains to be seen. For now, though, the retailer has managed something retailers rarely do: it has made itself relevant to a generation that had written it off.
Notable Quotes
For a long time M&S had this fusty reputation—it was less valued by younger people. There is now a fresh energy around the brand.— Chioma Nnadi, head of editorial content at British Vogue
The real height of fast fashion is behind us. M&S slots into that. People are willing to spend a little bit more on wardrobe staples and items that wash well and are made of cotton, not acrylic or polyester.— Perrie Sian, fashion influencer
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