My alarm was set for 7 am, the laptop was fully charged, fresh coffee was made and my shopping list was next to me. I, like thousands of other women in the UK, was ready to buy up the hottest fashion collaboration of the year: M&S x Bella Freud.
I expected it to appear at 8am, but when I opened the M&S homepage at 7.30am on Thursday morning it was already available to shop. I was lucky enough to get everything I wanted, except for the pinstripe mini skirt, which, like several other pieces, sold out in minutes. Who knew M&S shoppers were fans of such high hemlines? M&S has apparently done its homework.
It was one of two major high street collaborations that launched on Thursday, the other being John Lewis x AWAKE Mode. But by 10am it was clear that one was significantly more commercially successful than the other. While the knitwear and tailoring clothing with the Bella Freud slogan had largely sold out online, all of AWAKE Mode’s avant-garde garments were still available in every size.
As a fashion editor, I saw this coming. In the days leading up to the launch, every woman I encountered was raving about the Bella Freud collection. It was the topic of conversation at the office tea station. Friends exchanged messages and looked at which pieces they planned to buy. Several Instagram influencers received items in advance, which meant my social media feed was full of models showing them off. This frisson told me it would sell as fast as Taylor Swift tickets, hence my early morning shopping strategy.
The thinking woman’s slogan is knitted
In an age where a new fashion collaboration is announced every five minutes, this is rare. I don’t usually get caught up in the hype, with the exception of Anya Hindmarch for Uniqlo this time last year. But like many British women, I’ve loved Bella Freud knits, which cost upwards of £245, ever since I saw them on Kate Moss and Alexa Chung in the early to mid-2000s.
The designer – a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and daughter of the late artist Lucien Freud – developed a following for her sweaters with slogans that pay tribute to the beatnik era. Jane Birkin, poet Allan Ginsberg and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard – they suggest that the wearer is also aware of these cultural references; the thinking woman’s slogan is knitted.
‘Even if you don’t know who Bella Freud is as a designer, you still want a sweater like that, whether you’ve seen one on Kate Moss or Claudia Winkleman. They are for everyone, just like M&S,” says Virginia Norris, co-founder of PR agency Aisle 8, which works with major retailers such as Mango, Reiss, Sezane and Missoma, but has also worked with M&S in the past.
“Most high street retailers have T-shirts and sweatshirts with logos or words that have become bestsellers year after year and generate huge volumes for them,” she explains. “People love logos and being able to wear things that are clearly recognizable, and Bella Freud does this on so many levels.”
Taste and direction, but not a sell-out success
In contrast, no one outside the fashion department told me about the collaboration with AWAKE Mode before its launch. The brand is undoubtedly cool and has a loyal following, but perhaps it was just too niche a label for the John Lewis customer to appreciate.
Portability and price are also critical. There’s nothing complicated about wearing a jumper or suit – Bella for M&S has a good mix of fitted and oversized styles, some in cashmere, some in wool, nothing too scary or priced above £139. Some pieces from the AWAKE range mode are tempting, like the £149 red off-the-shoulder jumper, but the £399 cape coat was a bit of a fail – surely that overly oversized shape won’t find its way into John Lewis’s fanbase?
The AWAKE Fashion collaboration has not been created with sell-out potential in mind: it has been set up through the British Fashion Council, which, in celebration of 40 years of London Fashion Week, wants to introduce younger contemporary labels to the high street audience – an important mission.
It’s also a brand positioning opportunity for John Lewis, signaling a certain level of taste and direction from its creative team, but it’s not a sell-out success. “I like AWAKE mode,” says Norris. “It’s a fashion insider brand and it does something very different for John Lewis in terms of the company’s fashion credentials. [But John Lewis] now needs a crowd-pulling collaboration to get the groundswell of brand love it deserves.”
This battle between retail institutions comes at a time when the high street is saturated with collaborations. This season alone there’s Barbour x Alexa Chung, Cult Gaia x Gap, Roxanda x George at Asda, Clare Waight Keller jewelery for Reformation, Tabitha Simmonds x Next, Reiss x Les 100 Ciels, Farm Rio x Adidas… all trying to attract customers. enticing you to buy something newsworthy, and now – these limited edition products could be gone tomorrow.
M&S is finally finding out what customers want
In fact, they are experiencing such a moment, the high street’s original collaborators are also making a return: Zara is launching a partywear collection with Kate Moss in November, harking back to the glory days of 2007, when the supermodel joined forces with Topshop in a launch that paralyzed half of London’s Oxford Street.
Now, to stand out, a collaboration must meet several criteria: portability, affordability and desirability. M&S has all that, but the real X-factor with the Bella Freud slogan knits, the one that sold me, is that they are in the same font as the £300 versions; you can really pass them off as a designer.
“This is a real coup for M&S and a continuation of the brand’s recent fashion journey,” says Norris. “They are working with the right, beloved fashion influencers and it is really paying off.”
Sadly, they won’t be restocked, M&S tells the Telegraph, which only adds to the appeal. After years of trying and failing to find its fashion feet, the retailer has finally discovered what its customer wants. Now it’s up to John Lewis to try and achieve the same feat.