Marks & Spencer Clothing Sales Drop Worsens as Discounts Fail

LONDON, United Kingdom — Marks & Spencer Group Plc reported a tenth straight quarter of falling clothing sales, indicating that heavy discounting before Christmas had little effect in luring customers back to Britain’s largest apparel retailer.

Non-food sales at stores open at least a year fell 2.1 percent in the 13 weeks ended Dec. 28, the London-based company said in a statement today. That’s worse than the median estimate for unchanged sales in a Bloomberg News survey of 19 analysts. Food sales rose 1.6 percent on that basis, less than the 2 percent anticipated by the analysts surveyed.

Marks & Spencer failed to match growth reported by clothing competitors Next Plc, John Lewis and House of Fraser, all of whom benefited from growth in their online units. Unlike Next, the retailer offered discounts before Christmas, cutting prices by as much as half on the key fall/winter collection to shift inventory.

Will H&M Become a Paris Fashion Week Fixture?

When you think Paris fashion week, H&M isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind—however, that may be about to change. Today, WWD reports that the high street retailer, who held its first star-studded party and runway romp for its elevated H&M Studio range during PFW last February, is coming back for round two. The Fall ’14 event will be hosted at a yet-to-be-disclosed venue on February 26. Judging by the Fall ’13 event, which featured the likes of Cara Delevingne, Joan Smalls, and Lindsey Wixson on the catwalk, and Ashley Olsen, Carine Roitfeld, and Chloë Moretz in the front row, it seems H&M’s February showing is poised to become a fashion week favorite.

Alexander Wang’s Toilet Humor

The first image from Alexander Wang’s cheeky Spring ’14 digital campaign broke today, and infused with humor, retro ambiance, and the designer’s signature breed of cool, the Steven Klein-lensed teaser shot has got everything—except clothes. The snap was staged in a bleak public restroom and features only the platform-clad feet of Anna Ewers and Zuzu Tadeushuk. The rest of their presumably Wang-dressed bodies are hiding behind the closed stall doors. “Since the spring-summer 2014 collection plays on the duality of naïveté and perverse explicitness in youth culture, we wanted to shoot the campaign in a very familiar environment most people grow up reminiscing about,” Wang told WWD. “I loved blurring the lines between censorship and humor.”