Mary Portas has a new fight: fashion for the over-40s

By Clare Coulson 700AM GMT fourteen March 2010

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Mary Portas "At the impulse in fashion, girl represents sex appeal, and the conform industry and the media are obliged for this" Photo BBC/Optomen

It is a Thursday sunrise in M&S"s flagship Marble Arch store and Annie Cooper, an M&S unchanging in her fifties, is flicking by a rail of the store"s Portfolio line. There are silky prints in Quality Street colours (purple, mount and stately blue), wide-legged trousers with an unappealing glaze and gathered, above-the-knee printed skirts. "There"s not majority here I would wish to wear," sighs Cooper. "The colours feel frumpy. Where are the classical pieces? Isn"t that what majority women my age want?"

Launched last open and directed at "women in their mid-forties and over", Portfolio is standard of the garments that the British high travel serves up to women who have upheld 40, and assumingly upheld on fashion, too.

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Admittedly, it"s not all bad; there are a couple of some-more earnest pieces such as slinky, fine-knit cardigans, Breton-stripe tees and flattering blouses (without the ornate prints), but there"s zero with the frail sportiness of the tux or cropped grosgrain jackets subsequent doorway in the Autograph section.

Designing for the comparison marketplace seems devilishly tough for the British high travel to undiluted as majority women in their forties, fifties and sixties can attest.

It"s a theme close to the heart of Mary Portas. "If I was put in carry out of John Lewis, there is not a lot I would change," wrote thecolumnist and sell guru progressing this week. "The one area I would see in to would be fashion. I honestly think they have an event to take conform for 40-plus women to a new level; it is a marketplace still under-served on the high street."

It is a predicament that has desirous her subsequent series, that will air on Channel 4 this autumn, in that she will examine since British conform fails scrupulously to recognize women in their forties, fifties and beyond. "At the impulse in fashion, girl represents sex appeal, and the conform industry and the media are obliged for this. We need to change perceptions."

"It"s about conform that"s age-appropriate that can additionally be glamorous and sexy," says Portas, who, as piece of her new series, will open a emporium that will in essence reinvent how conform is sole to comparison women. "Even if businesses do support for comparison women, they don"t wish to show it. I wish to plea that. There are so majority women who don"t wish to be sole garments by a size-8, 18-year-old emporium assistant. These are the majority absolute and successful consumers, so since aren"t they being served?"

According to Mintel, UK women elderly in between 50 and 69 buy some-more engineer conform and oppulance products than any alternative group, whilst the over-55s additionally carry out about 80 per cent of the country"s resources a pot that is estimated to grow to �6.4 billion by 2014. For those women with disposable income, it"s frustrating when the high travel doesn"t deliver.

"Women over 40 are only entrance in to their power. They have income and they see after themselves, too," says fortysomething Caroline Evans, who once worked in conform sell and right away runs a oppulance accessories line, Moncrief. "I have friends who are in their forties but skirt as though they are in their twenties. I don"t wish to obey that I wish to be fanciful and elegant."

Evans adapts majority of the pieces that she buys, utilizing a tailor to redo the cuts or reshape pieces. "There are garments out there, but they are not on the high street," says Evans. "Where is the extraordinary tailoring, pleasing fabrics, comely jackets? Where are the unequivocally good, multi-functioning pieces?"

For majority women, the cut and peculiarity of garments is key. "The fit needs to be opposite for comparison women," says Lorna Donovan, who is in her fifties and lives in Cheshire. "I"m not fat I"m a distance twelve but a immature lady has spare arms, whilst an comparison woman"s arms are bigger. Occasionally, I buy from the high street, but majority of the time I emporium at boutiques since I get a improved cut and the fabrics are better, too."

Susie Forbes, the stylish editor of Easy Living magazine, agrees "I think that, as well often, it is the peculiarity of high-street garments not the character that fails the some-more grown up customer. When you are young, garments are all about character over quality, but as you get comparison and your physique figure changes, that all goes in to reverse."

Aside from fit, the alternate form of women over 40 can upset retailers, too. "There"s a bias that, over 40, you get some-more regressive and grown-up, and I"m not certain that"s true," says Brenda Polan, executive of programmes (media) at the London College of Fashion. "One of the problems with the shops that think they support for the over-40s is that they are really lifeless not classic, only dull."

Polan is austere that there are great garments out there, but admits that infrequently it"s tough to find them.

But, as Portas asks, since aren"t retailers seemingly promotion their things to the right consumers? Sandra Halliday, tellurian handling executive of the trend-forecasting group WGSN, says that retailers are charity copiousness of garments for women over 40 on the high street, but the summary retailers are raised can be really confused. "There"s an picture problem," she says. "Either shops appear as well young, or they publicize the actuality that they are a end for prime women, that is similarly off-putting."

Halliday says that a little retailers try really tough to scold this, citing M&S"s multi-generational ads. "It"s a absolute e.g. of a tradesman observant this is for you and for your daughter."

However, a little retailers are creation strides. Stores such as Banana Republic and Cos the cool off-shoot of H&M have filled a opening in the marketplace for well-cut pieces that are select but not as well young.

Wallis right away collaborates with Yasmin Le Bon, who is 45, producing collections that are both superb and alluringly ageless. "We couldn"t means to omit these women we wouldn"t have a business," says Anne Secunda, code executive for Wallis. "But I hold it"s about perspective not age now. Women in their fifties and sixties wish to see select and sexy."

Jane Shepherdson, the lady at the back of the rebirth of Whistles, agrees. "There are a little things that do change as you get comparison may be your hemlines come down a bit but I think it is about confidence, too. We outlay a lot of time in stores articulate about how things would be ragged and put together. We have mothers and daughters who emporium together, but they would wear things in a opposite way."

The idealisation change will certainly come from designers rather than retailers. After what seems similar to roughly a decade of the general catwalks being dominated by bubbly beverage dresses and super-sexy party-wear, designers are eventually waking up to the genuine day-to-day needs of women. The new turn of autumn/winter shows was packed with garments that all ages of women could wear, from neat trouser suits and superb dresses to pleasing outerwear and athletic basics.

Why is this function now? The retrogression has done oppulance labels recur their approach, and well-designed classics are sure-fire winners when women have less money.

But the change in mood can additionally be laid at the doorway of Cline"s Phoebe Philo.

In reviving the French oppulance house, Philo one of the industry"s majority successful players has put pleasing classics at the heart of her pattern philosophy. Her designs for Cline are out of reach for majority women, but Philo"s change guarantees that shortly her cultured will be trickling down on a high travel nearby you.