M&S has been a British institution for over a century. They’ve dressed us for weddings, funerals, and that awkward Zoom call where you only need a smart shirt. But the world has changed, and M&S, bless its tweed heart, has been caught with its trousers halfway down. The biggest culprit? The way we shop has gone bonkers.
We now buy our socks from a website that also sells train tickets and our food from a German discounter that plays weirdly cheerful pop music. M&S stores, with their polite lighting and slightly chilly air, feel like a time capsule. They were designed for a slower age, when you’d take a pleasant amble down the high street, not a frantic scamper to the click-and-collect kiosk. The result? A lot of empty, echoing floor space in big old buildings.
