The Fashion BusinessMacDonald and Katherine Hamnett to produce small collections for sale in
stylishly decorated dedicated areas within top stores. It seems that the demand
was well met; in its first week Autograph generated £1m worth of sales. I
am keenly aware that it is the interest of volume retailers to support the
emergent designers and small-scale craft operations that can feed this demand.
Back in 1994, when I gave the lecture at Kingston University that was the
basis of this chapter, I warned that the consumer would tire of the volume-
priced quality and machine-made consistency of mass production if there
were no alternative to provide the occasional intoxicating treat. I suggested
then that we should be investing in small-scale niche operations that we
ourselves were too big to provide for. Autograph is one example of this, but
the tradition stretches back to 1994, when our suppliers started, for the first
time, to work with independent designers to produce ranges for Marks &
Spencer. The relationship between the then small-scale niche designer
operation Ghost, our supplier Coats Viyella and ourselves not only helped
to raise design for the High Street to a completely new level, but enabled
Ghost’s Tanya Sarne to increase her business dramatically. Ghost have joined
Paul Smith as the first United Kingdom based designer brands and I, as Deputy
Chairman of the British Fashion Council since 1998, have a vision that others
such as Hussein Chalayan and Clements Ribeiro could achieve similar success,
supported by the volume retailers. Another example of Marks & Spencer’s
support for independent design is our sponsorship, from 1994 onwards, of
New Generation, which, operated by the British Fashion Council funds
emergent designers to show their collections during British Fashion Week.
Recipients of New Generation funding include Hussein Chalayan in 1993,
Clements Ribeiro in 1994 and 1995, Julien MacDonald in 1997 and 1998,
Matthew Williamson in 1998 and 1999 and Anthony Symonds in 1999 and
2000.
So, in reality, the beginnings of the new approach to design which I believe
is the way forward were already in place before the downturn in business
occurred. Our objective since 1998 has been to accelerate the rate of change.
Opportunities still exist, but as I have described, the market is more
knowledgeable and more fickle than it was, and we have to be more agile in
order to spot and meet new demands. As a result, we now work in smaller
teams with fewer people involved in developing a product. This way decisions
are made by those working closest to the product, and the process is much
speedier, enabling us to get the right products to the market more quickly.
Marks & Spencer’s designers maintain their strategic ‘forecasting’ role but
they also work directly with suppliers on putting ranges together, ensuring
high-quality definitive products which are not diluted by a drawn-out
decision-making process. We have begun to assemble our products, clothes,