Thrifty measures suit M&S down to a T-shirt

Poor old Marks & Spencer. What with poor Christmas sales figures forcing the retailer to issue a profits warning and its much-vaunted Lifestore closing last week having cost it an estimated £29m, it seems almost mean to put the boot in even mo

Poor old Marks & Spencer. What with poor Christmas sales figures forcing the retailer to issue a profits warning and its much-vaunted Lifestore closing last week having cost it an estimated &£29m, it seems almost mean to put the boot in even more. Almost.

So here goes: not only are Marks & Sparks’ clothes no longer good enough for the British public, it seems they’re no longer good enough for the company itself.

Here is a nice picture of a T-shirt advertising the Marks & Spencer sale. Similar garments adorn dummies up and down the land, as the UK enters its traditional January bargain frenzy. And it would make sense, thought the Diary, for a major clothing retailer to print a sale advertisement on one of its own garments rather than ones from Gildan Activewear, a Canadian company only recently forgiven by the Fair Labor Association after admitting to some dodgy practice in Honduras. Imagine the Diary’s surprise, then, upon checking the label and discovering that the North Americans have indeed penetrated the very heart of the British establishment.

A prize goes to the reader who provides credible evidence of Stuart Rose buying his underwear at Next…