St. Michael

St Michael is a brand that was owned and used by Marks & Spencer from 1928.

The brand was introduced by Simon Marks in 1928, after his father and co-founder of Marks & Spencer, Michael Marks. By 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the St Michael brand. M&S lingerie, women's clothing and girls' uniforms were branded under the St Margaret brand, until the whole range of general merchandise became St Michael.

In 2000, Marks & Spencer shifted to the Marks & Spencer brand. The St Michael name was subsequently adopted as a 'quality guarantee' and appeared as the St Michael Quality Promise on the back of food products, on the side of delivery vehicles and on in-store ordering receipts. The St Michael Quality Promise was phased out a few years ago.^[2]

Marks & Spencer were selling clothes under the St Margaret and St Michael label by the mid-1950s and launched their school uniforms in the early 1950s, but these would be shifted toward brands such as Autograph in the 2000s.^[1]

Major product lines

The company put its main emphasis on quality, including a 1957 stocking size measuring system.^[1] For most of its history, it has also had a reputation for offering fair value for money.

The synthetic fibre Tricell was first used in 1957 and lasted until the 1970s^[1] and another synthetic fibre called Courtelle was first launched nationally by Marks & Spencer during 1960 and also lasted well into the 1970s.^[1] Machine washable wool first appeared in 1972 and Lycra hosiery first came in during 1986.^[1]

M&S launched their own brands of domestic products, such as washing powder and aluminium foil in 1972, under the brand name of 'House-care'.^[1]

M&S has sold Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings since 1958. In an effort to improve the quality of their Swiss rolls, they hired the food expert Nat Goldberg, who made a major improvement across their entire cake range, which had lost the public's favour a few years earlier. As a later measure to improve food quality food labelling was improved and "sell by dates" were phased in between 1970 and 1972.^[1]

Boil-in-the-bag and sachet meals were first pioneered by M&S in 1972 and the award-winning Gastropub food range was launched in 2004.^[1] The 'Melting middle chocolate pudding' campaign of 2005 led to a remarkable 3,000% rise in chocolate pudding sales,^[1] something that has not re-occurred since.

The successful Autograph brand was launched in 2000 and was originally meant to be for men, but had now moved on to cover children and women by 2005.^[1] The 1996–1997 'Orient Express Tagged' brand was the first of numerous new brands, most of which were in feminine and children's clothes. The 'Orient Express Tagged' brand was part of the inspiration behind the 'Portfolio' brand.^[1] The men's Autograph brand was then launched in 2000^[1] and continues to this day.^[3][4][5][1]

The Percy Pigs sweets were first created in 1995^[6] and the billionth "Percy Pig" sweet was sold by the October 2007.^[1]

M&S's relatively successful interior design 'Homeware' brand was launched in 2005 and renamed 'Home' in 2006. It features products like vases, furniture, beds etc.^[1]

Plus range maternity – larger sizes of maternity clothes – were absorbed into the already existing 'Limited Collection Maternity', under the name of 'M&S Maternity'^[7] in 2008 to simplify administration.^[8]

The women's 'Perfect' and 'Essential' sub-brands were largely relaunched in 2009 as the 'Portfolio' range, but without the high end designer blouses. Perfect still operates in men's rain coats and cookware. Perfect was relaunced in January 2010 as a seasonal sub-brand of Portfolio.^[9]

Limited collection

Per Una

Per Una is a range of younger female's clothing sold at M&S stores, launched on 28 September 2001 as a joint venture between M&S and Next founder George Davies. The brand name means for one (woman) in Italian. All Per Una items include the three hearts logo, inspired by a postcard seen by Davies while on holiday in Italy.

The Per Una brand has been a major success for the company,^[16] and in October 2004, M&S bought the brand in a £125 million, two-year service contract with George Davies.^[17] Davies was to stay on for at least two years to run the company, with 12 months notice required if he wished to leave.^[16][17]

The teenagers' line called Per Una Due was launched in early 2004,^[18][19][20] but sales were poor and it was discontinued in May 2004, while the adult lines flourished by 2010.^{[citation needed]}

The Designer Discount brand was relaunched in the festive season 2008–2009 as Buy me now or lose me forever – limited stock.

North Coast

Portfolio

Portfolio This is aimed at the core 40–55 businesswoman. It is meant to offer all that is close to her feminine side. The shoes, trouser suits, blouses and frocks will be UK sourced and the T-shirts will involve fair trade cotton from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.^[23] It has incorporated some products from the former Perfect and Essential sub-brands. Portfolio Cashmere had absorbed the other male and female M&S cashmere jumper lines. Portfolio (headed by Marie Helvin since 2008) recently began to issue Speziale fashion trousers and Jeggings in a final bid for customers in late 2010^[24] The Portfolio brand is currently being phased out.^[25]

Indigo Collection

The Indigo collection This is a new range, aimed at the core, 18–25, feminine casual-comfortable type. It is meant to offer all that is close to her feminine side. The shoes, trousers and jeans will be UK and Bangladeshi-sourced and the T-shirts will involve fair trade cotton from Senegal, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Beachwear may be added to the list if the success continues.^[26][27]

It has a sub-brand product range called Denim which deals with women's jeans.^{[citation needed]}

Babywear was reduced to woolly hats, gloves, socks and bed linen after its baby clothes, blanket sleepers, Romper suits, cot blankets, babies' bibs, non-woolly hats, socks and cot linen were turned into the Indigo Baby line in January 2011.

Autograph

Autograph celebrated its tenth birthday in January 2010.^[31]

Marks and Spencer

Linen shop is the department in larger stores which sells the various linen articles listed above along with some linen items from other lines and brands.^[15][33][34]

Classic Collection

Classic Collection is a new seasonal range, aimed at the core 55+ retired woman. It is meant to offer all that is close to her feminine side. The shoes, skirts, blouses and frocks will be^{[needs update]} UK sourced and the T-shirts will involve fair trade cotton from India and Pakistan. It has 'Seasonal Classics' and 'Summer Classics' lines.^[35]

Blue Harbour

Blue Harbour is Britain's largest men's casuals brand, and includes the sub-brands Heritage, Luxury and Golf.

Other adult only clothes lines

M&S markets its miscellaneous and specialist adult clothes ranges under the following product ranges:

Miami Issue

• Miami Issue – unisex beachwear^[10]

M&S Maternity

• M&S Maternity (larger stores only)^[7]

Perfect

• Perfect – upmarket T-shirts, upmarket trousers, skirts and blouses (merged into Portfolio, along with Essential)^[9]

Plus range maternity

• Plus range maternity's larger sizes of maternity clothes were absorbed into the already existing 'Limited Collection Maternity', under the name of 'M&S Maternity' in 2008 to simplify administration.^[8]

Thermal luxury

• Thermal luxury – unisex thermals^[12]

Ultimate

• Ultimate – women's socks and hosiery^[39]

Adored

• Adored – sexy, specialist and thermal women's socks and hosiery, but merged with Ultimate in 2012^[39]

Katy Livingston

• Katy Livingston – upmarket sports clothes and merchandise relating to the British athlete Katy Livingston

The Zandra Rhodes collection

• The Zandra Rhodes collection – upmarket woollen clothes modelled and made by the British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, CBE/RDI^{[citation needed]}

Party, Party, Party!

• Party, Party, Party! – seasonal party clothes; reduced to women's wear in 2012^[42]

Breakthrough Breast Cancer

• M&S periodically markets charitable Love Pink clothes for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. M&S has sold a wide range of charitable women's clothes for Breakthrough Breast Cancer^[43] for many years.

Essential

• Essential – upmarket skirts and T-shirts (merged into Portfolio, along with Perfect)

Plus range maternity

• Plus range maternity – large stores only; merged with Limited Collection Maternity as 'M&S Maternity'

Limited Collection Maternity

• Limited Collection Maternity – merged with Plus Range Maternity as 'M&S Maternity'

Tailoring

• Tailoring – formal shirts, ties, and formal accessories

Floor 1 discount brands

• Floor 1 discount brands – women's discount fashion clothes (replaced by the 'Designer discount' line)

Other children's only clothes

M&S markets its miscellaneous and specialist childrenswear under the following brand names:

Living the dream

• The successful (online only) 'Living the Dream' children's range of Lewis Hamilton & Heikki Kovalainen memorabilia and merchandise was launched in September 2009.^{[46][47][48][49]} Merchandise also relating to his fellow racing driver, Jenson Button was added to the range during April 2010.^{[50][51][52][53]} Both were only available in bigger stores, but were only available on line in late 2010.

World Cup

• World Cup (2002/2006/2010)- Periodical World cup (some media critics said Fascist) memorabilia and merchandise for kids.^[54]

Plus fit

• Plus fit- Was launched in selected stores during July 2010 and are large sized children's clothes. It has proven to be a very popular line.^[60][61]

Party, Party, Party!

• Party, Party, Party! – seasonal party clothes; reduced to women's wear in 2012^[42]

Ready to play

• Ready to play playwear^[63]

Sleep

• Sleep – children's night clothes

Casual

• Casual – children's casual clothes and shoes

Partyware

• Partyware – children's party clothes^[10]

Denim

• Denim – children's jeans

The Shirt-sleeve empire

• The Shirt-sleeve empire – boys' shirts (was only available online in 2010)

Both Sleepwear, Twinkle toes, Casual Junior, The Shirt-sleeve empire, Partyware and Occasionwear were all merged into either Occasions, Indigo Junior or Autograph Junior over the Festive season of 2010–2011.

Other babywear lines

M&S markets its miscellaneous and specialist babywear under the following brand names:

• Babywear – unisex hats, gloves, socks, shoes and cot linen
• Petite babe – unisex small and premature babies
• Pure cotton – pure cotton unisex baby clothes
• Ready to play – playwear^[63]
• Romper-suit republic – baby clothes (was only available online until 2011)
• Fashion – babies' fashion clothes

Babywear was reduced to woolly hats, gloves, socks and bed linen- after its baby clothes, blanket sleepers, romper suits, cot blankets, babies' bibs, non-woolly hats, socks and cot linen were turned in the Indigo Baby line, along with Romper-suit republic and Fashion in the January 2011.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer

M&S periodically markets charitable clothes for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.^[43]

• B.C.A.UK (on line charitable T-shirts for the under 40's).
• B.C.A.M. (charitable merchandise aimed at raising awareness of breast cancer).

Revamped lines

April 2013 saw the M&S lingerie chief, Janie Schaffer, quit after only months in the job.^[64]

15 May 2013 saw the launch of the 'Best of British range' as well as the overhaul of Per Una and Indigo.^{[65] [66]} Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne – currently M&S's corporate director of strategy implementation and business development became the new marketing director and wii succeed Steven Sharp in July. Mark Bolland also vowed to bring "quality and style back"^[67][68][69]

The chain already has 20 UK suppliers and is looking to increase that number.^[66]

Interior design, kitchen equipment, bedding and furnishings

Other products

Technology In 2006 the company launched a range of domestic technology products. Over thirty-six stores offered this range. Additional services offered included television installation and technical help.^[79] Satnav technology was launched in January 2010–^[80]

• Technology – audio and visual equipment (TVs, DVD players, Blu-ray Players, games consoles, phones, W.A.P./mobile phones,^[81] iPods and more), DVDs and Blu-rays, communication devices (telephones, mobiles etc.), household electricals, white goods. However Technology goods are now available only from the company's website after Marc Bolland's decision to close all in-store Technology departments in 2011.

M&S Energy In 2008, the company launched M&S Energy^[82] (in partnership with Scottish & Southern Energy) providing Electricity and Gas for the Home. This was followed in February 2010 with Home Insulation.

• Travelware- The Lexington light and Ontario heavy luggage and Scorpius utility rollercase lines.
• Toy shop – Children's toys.^{[83][84][85][86][87]}
• First reader- Young childrens' and toddlers' learning, story and fairy tale books.

Own branded food stuffs

Major brands

Free range

• Free range –- free-range eggs, Oakham chicken and field-bred pork. Oakham chicken is exclusive to M&S, and is not from the Rutland town of Oakham. Free-range eggs have been on sale since 1997 and M&S is deeply committed to upholding animal welfare.^[1]

Gastropub

• Gastropub are ready meals inspired by pub cuisine for home cooking^[1] It got a 'Golden pub-meal commendation' in 2005.^[1]
• Lunchtogo – upmarket and businessmen's grab bag and packed lunch meals.^[89] The 'Food to go line' was merged into it during the festive season of 2010–2011.
• Bistro range- A range of Bistro inspired meals launched during the festive season of 2010–2011.

Percy Pig

Percy Pigs is a popular brand of pig-shaped raspberry-flavoured confectionery made under licence in Germany for Marks & Spencer.^[90][91] The sweets first appeared in stores in the mid-1990s. The name "Percy Pig" has now been trademarked by Marks & Spencer.^[6] More than £10,000,000 was grossed between June 2009 and 2010 in Percy Pig sales in Marks & Spencer's UK branches alone.^[6] They are made up of just under 3.5% fruit juice.^[92]

Percy Pigs were created in 1995 and were sold in strawberry and raspberry flavours.^[6] Until 2008, Percy Pigs were available in 100, 200 and 400 grams. The packaging has not changed size, but the middle size now contains 170 grams and the large size now contains 340 grams. There is also the related Colin the Caterpillar sweet that was first launched in the festive season of 2008–2009.

Alcohol

M&S has an extensive wine and beer range,^[93] which was first started in 1973.^[1]

In 2006 and 2007, M&S entered over a hundred of its own wines into two wine competitions, The Decanter World Wine Awards and The International Wine Challenge. Both years, almost every wine won an award, ranging from the 2005 Secano Pinot Noir, Leyda Valley, Chile (Best Pinot Noir in the world for under £10) to the Rosada Cava (Commended).^[94]

• Beer – UK and EU-sourced beers.
• Wine – a worldwide selection of fine wine, including Chardonnay and Shiraz

Branded food products

• In November 2009, Marks & Spencer announced that it would begin selling up to 400 branded lines, such as Kellogg's & Heinz.^[95] In November 2010, it was speculated that they may discontinue up to 300 of these branded products to push their brand further.^[96]

Old labels

'St Margaret', 'St Michael' and 'Homecare' brands were the time-honoured brand labels that fell out of use in the company wide re-branding campaign of the early 2000s.^[1] The stylish 1996–1997 'Orient Express Tagged' brand was the first of numerous new brands, most of which were in women's and children's clothes.^[1] The 'Orient Express Tagged' brand^[1] was revived in 2007 as the year long 'Orient Express Platform 10' brand^[1] and was part of the inspiration behind the 'Portfolio' brand.^[1] The men's Autograph brand was then launched in 2000^[1] and continues to this day.^{[28][29][30][31]}

'Plus range maternity – larger sizes of maternity clothes were absorbed into the already existing 'Limited Collection Maternity', under the name of 'M&S Maternity'^[7] in 2008 to simplify administration.^[8]

The women's 'Perfect' and 'Essential' sub-brands were largely relaunched in 2009 as the 'Portfolio' range, but with out the high end designer blouses. Perfect still operates in men's rain coats and cookware. Perfect was relaunced in January 2010 as a seasonal sub-brand of Portfolio.^[9]

Sir Stuart Rose axed both the ailing casual menswear brand SP Clothing, the View From sportswear range, the David Beckham children's range, DB07 clothes, the teenage range Per Una Due and several food lines in 2004, because he thought the business' stock inventory management had become 'too complicated'^[103]

The retailer had launched several brands, sub-brands and line of womenswear and Childrenswear in recent years such as Indigo Collection Junior, Indigo Collection and Portfolio. Indigo Collection aimed at women over 30s, while Portfolio 45s. Overall, M &S has ten womenswear sub-brands and sub-sub-brands, such as Per Una and Autograph, but only six menswear brands, such as Blue Harbour, North Coast and Collezione by 2010.^[21]

The 2008–9 restructuring plan

As part of the 2008-9 restructuring plan, nine sub-brands deemed to be unprofitable, unnecessary or superfluous were either discontinued, merged or relaunched in 2008, with further activity, including some store closures, occurring in both 2009 and 2010.

• 'Conde Nast' (the M&S clothes, not Condé Nast Publications) designer clothes were a planned sub-brand that was not launched over the festive season of 2009–2010 because of the credit crunch and became part of the 'Indigo Collection' and 'Portfolio' lines.
• All the Kid's furniture (the 'Kid's bedroom' line), bedding and electronic toys (part of the 'Toy shop' brand) were re-grouped and expanded as the 'Kids at home' brand in January 2010,^{[104][105][106]} but the merger had been repealed and broken back up by July 2010.^[107]
• Perfection (Autograph's & Per Una's perfumeries merged into one in early 2009)

M&S also began to sell other branded goods like Kellogg's Corn Flakes from November 2008.^[108] and may ditch its own branded food^[109] in 2011 due to poor turn over beyond the 'Food to go', 'Lunchtogo' and 'Gastropub' lines.

The 2010 product audit

Another review and re-branding exercise was planned for late 2010 and 2011 after several years of declining sales in the womenswear department as born out by an audit conducted by the firm the Retail Knowledge Bank in the August 2010.

'PU Active' was a brief foray by Per Una into the casual sportswear lines in the September 2010, but it was scrapped during its infancy by the October due to poor sales figures.

The '2011 brand cull'

Marc Bolland had considered axing several brands in early 2011 after an audit by the Retail Knowledge Bank in the August 2010, revealed that sales of M&S womenswear were at a ten-year low. The audit covered both the Limited Collection, Autograph, Autograph Weekend, Classic Collection, Per Una, Portfolio and Indigo.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer of 2010, Drapers magazine claimed that Per Una was the only clothing brand that was not at risk of being axed in Mr Bolland's shake-up of the plethora of clothing brands sold at M&S.^[21] Per Una was planned to stay due to its successful and distinctive flair, but Portfolio and Indigo were planned go due to poor sales.^{[citation needed]} The Limited Collection, Autograph, Autograph Weekend, Classic Collection brands were being considered for the cull during mid-2010, but were later given a reprieve.^[110]

It was revealed in the November 2010, that there would be a major 3 year UK store revamp, which would cost between £850,000,000 and £900,000,000 and a cull of what Mr Bolland called "the often confusing" store layouts and "indistinguishable brands".^[111][112]

M&S also announced it was planning to take over Twiggy's Twiggy international label some during the winter 2010–2011.^[21]

The May–August 2011 Corporate revamp

Fashion guru Sara Bradley was reported in March as planning to take a 'senior role' within M&S's clothing business by mid-2011. The official goal was to be better at food than supermarkets and better at clothes and general merchandise than department stores.^[113]

Alison Jones, who is the daughter of Sir David Jones, joined M&S on 2 June, as the new brand director for general merchandise, under the leadership of marketing director Steve Sharp. She had gained previous experience at Topshop and Debenhams. The role has been created to give a more cohesive approach to M&S's branding and help develop and co-ordinate the brand and strategy for M&S's clothing division.^[114]

May 2013 revamp

15 May 2013 saw the launch of the 'Best of British' range as well as the overhaul of Per Una and Indigo.^[66] Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne – currently M&S's corporate director of strategy implementation and business development became the new marketing director and will succeed Steven Sharp in July. Mark Bolland also vowed to bring back "quality and style"^[67][68][69]

The new 2017 seasonal collections

'The White Collection' was discontinued by mid 2018.

A new line was started.

1. M&S Collection ('elevated' female everyday essentials) ^[120]