Could reissuing the vintage 'St Michael' label be the answer to Marks & Spencer’s woes?

30 years ago, you knew what you were getting when you walked into a Marks & Spencer store. The name was a byword for quality - the ‘proper’ wool winter coats, the dresses, knitwear, or pants that all felt like everyday luxuries.

As such, and rather ironically, there is an ever-growing market for Marks & Spencer items that are now considered ‘vintage’. Pieces from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are being resold on websites such as eBay and Depop, and typically have held their value far better than pieces from the more recent collections have. As modern M&S seems to be struggling, with 7,000 job cuts announced last week, there is new nostalgia and appetite to buy treasures from its heyday.

Forget Per Una or Limited Collection, the term to type into the search bar is St Michael. It’s a moniker so retro that The Telegraph’s fashion editors pronounce it “San Michelle” - as if it were some exotic relation to the French house of Saint Laurent.

There are currently more than 14,000 St Michael garments for sale on eBay (with more new items added daily) as sellers realise the potential to re-market old M&S wares as now-genuine vintage. A scroll through the listings is like a trip into the design archives, revisiting some of Marks & Spencer’s greatest hits.

“I often have younger customers who are unaware that the two are the same brand,” says Hannah Stacpoole, founder of online vintage store salutolondon.com, of how some consumers today don’t remember the original M&S branding. Many sellers don’t mention the name M&S, only the St Michael.  “It is common knowledge though amongst traders that St Michael items are long lasting and great quality. It is incredible to see the quality considering they were sold at a high-street prices.”

A 1960s chiffon blouse in a psychedelic bubblegum pink - listed as in 'excellent' condition -  recently sold on eBay for £9.50. A lilac belted teadress dress from the 1980s on sale for £26.95 is not dissimilar to the styles currently being sold by designer brand Alessandra Rich for thousands of pounds. There is a proud photograph of its ‘made in the UK’ label, a reminder that much of the current M&S clothing collection is made in Georgia (dresses), India (blouses) or China (the cashmere jumpers). 

“During the summer, I've seen a huge increase in sales of St Michael's floral nightwear - slip dresses and padded house coats which quite easily reflect current trends,” vintage expert Hannah Stacpoole said. The brand's vintage lingerie is often being worn as outerwear, and current designers such as Cecile Bahnsen and Sea NY are selling versions of the looks championed by St Michael decades ago.

The pieces have generally held their value relatively or even increased over time. On eBay it’s £49.99 for a 1970s prairie dress, or £65 for a 1950s floral flare skirt dress. The average 1970s dress cost £3.99 - the average wage for a man in 1976 was £70 a week - for women it was £45.30. In the 1950s, a dress was around 40 shillings. £20 for a pure wool kilt - its exact measurements detailed in inches on the St Michael care label. Remember when sizing was specific, not hit and miss like it is these days?

At the top end of the market, it’s £140 for a 1950s dress, and around £90 for the majority of classic wool coats. I can attest to the durability of those - I have a 28-year-old St Michael wool boucle coat in my own wardrobe, which previously belonged to my mother.

“St Michael pieces from the 1980s have a specific label,” explains Jennifer Mitchell-McNally, a seller and owner of Liverpool’s Overdressed Vintage boutique of the black and red tags. “They are of the utmost quality. Whenever I source some, they’re never in stock for long.  It’s mainly tailoring, velvet jackets and pussy bow blouses that are the most sought after. The St Michael tailoring department experienced its heyday in that era, producing exceptionally-well-fitted jackets. "

The St Michael brand, originally registered in 1928, was abandoned by M&S at the end of 1999 - its profits had dropped by 50 per cent that year, and bosses were planning a big shake up in order to appeal to more fashion-conscious audiences. Debenhams was doing well, with its freshly launched ‘Designers at Debenhams’ collections by Ben de Lisi and Jasper Conran. Topshop had signed Hussein Chalayan and Dorothy Perkins got Clements Ribeiro to act as design consultants.

Isn’t hindsight a funny thing? Of course, the ‘hot new names’ which Debenhams had onboarded back then are the exact same ones as render it stale and struggling today. The sub-brands which M&S launched at that time to replace St Michael are one of its sore points now - Indigo, Limited Collection et al were all axed in the last few years after being deemed meaningless to consumers.

Vintage St Michael could well experience the same popularity surge as vintage Laura Ashley. Just as it became clear that modern Laura Ashley was doomed, interest in its once-great, now-vintage clothes boomed online. The look which its original founder had championed between the years of 1953 and 1985 was exactly the look which was once again at the height of modern fashion in the spring of 2020 - yet current business owners were too late, and too unaware, to cash in on the trend revival.

M&S should learn from Laura Ashley’s mistakes. Modern customers are crying out for simple, classic, high quality, affordable clothing. It chimes with fashion’s current overarching message to ‘buy less, buy better’, a movement more powerful and with greater longevity than any attempts to pander to short-term trends.

M&S doesn’t need to be the coolest. It shouldn’t try to compete with Zara to churn out trends, nor copy the designers. The St Michael label is, still, seen as a hallmark for quality - there’s an audience online willing to trawl the eBay listings to track down pieces by that name. Why not bring it back? Looking to the past could just be the thing to secure M&S’s future.

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