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Upmarket brands may have begun stalking mass consumers, but the trend labelled ‘massluxe’ (or ‘masstige’, take your pick) is more about chain stores smartening up. Gap, for instance, went one step further than H&M by naming Domenico De Sole, the former chief executive of Gucci group, to its board, and hiring designers who had previously worked with Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein. To underline the change, a subsequent print advertising campaign starred Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker, a style icon for millions of women. Gap is in better shape right now than it has been for years. Back in 2002, the company was limping as customers turned their backs on a brand that looked bland and baggy next to trendy newcomers from Spain and Scandinavia. The turnaround has been attributed to Paul Pressler, who took over as chief executive in 2002. The former Disney theme-park executive halted expansion, closed underperforming stores, and strove to redefine the chain’s brand identity – along with that of its sister brands Old Navy and Banana Republic. Although Gap still has some work to do, it emerged from the revamp looking younger, sharper and more fashionable, and is about to start expanding again. Even Laura Ashley is in on the act, having appointed Alistair Blair –who previously worked with Lagerfeld, Givenchy and Dior – as its design director. ‘I walked into the store, saw the cut and quality of the clothes and thought, “This is so un-high street. I cannot believe how good these clothes are,”’ marvelled Joan Rolls, a ‘fortysomething former Vogue staffer’, in The International Herald Tribune. The article quoted Rolls as saying that the clothes had ‘the same ethos as, dare I say it, Burberry, but at a fraction of the price’. (‘Massluxe, the buzz on high street’, 23 September 2004.)
In a variation on the theme, at around the same time that H&M was counting the press clippings from its Lagerfeld coup, French clothing catalogue La Redoute brought out a line designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Several elements combined to drive this evolution. The post-9/11 economic fall-out forced luxury shoppers to tighten their belts, while casting around for a viable alternative that would fool as many observers as possible. High-street shoppers, having spent years soaking up articles about Ford, Galliano, Jacobs, Prada and the rest of the fashion firmament, became design-savvy and demanding. And the retailers wanted to distance themselves from the flood of bargain-basement supermarket labels that was lapping at their heels – a tendency that has been accelerated by the end of textile-trade restrictions at the end of 2004 (see Chapter 18: Brave new market).
The emergence of supermarket brands and ‘value-led’ fashion is worth a brief detour. The reference in the sector is Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest store group. When Wal-Mart acquired Asda in 1999, the British supermarket chain was already famous for its cut-price clothing brand George, created by Next founder George Davies in 1990. Although the store didn’t offer a dramatic retail environment or imaginative marketing, it sold jeans for £4 – along with other cheap and cheerful garments that, while not exactly fashion-forward, were perfectly wearable. Wal-Mart has since taken the brand global, and by the end of 2004 was promising stand-alone stores. In the UK, Asda began crowing that George now sold more clothes than fallen British favourite Marks & Spencer. Asda is not alone in this growing niche. Tesco has two brands, Cherokee and Florence & Fred, which are edging ever closer to the type of ‘fast fashion’ items sold by the likes of H&M. These brands are given space in fashion magazines and sold in separate sections of the store, giving them an increased legitimacy. Away from the supermarkets, ‘value’ outlets such as Matalan, TK Maxx and Primark are nibbling away at the mid-market retailers. One of the first into the sector, Matalan has been selling discounted high-street brands for 20 years. Customers must become ‘members’ of the organization before they can shop at its 170 or so outlets across the UK. With a loyal customer base thus assured, Matalan saves money by locating its stores out of town, buying clothing in bulk, and selling it in no-nonsense environments. But Matalan faces major competition in the form of TK Maxx, which stocks genuine designer brands at rock-bottom prices. It’s part of the American group TJX, which was founded in 1976 and now bills itself as the world’s largest ‘off-price’ retailer. The magazine Management Today explained its approach as follows: ‘Like others in the sector, [TK Maxx] keeps costs low with little in the way of merchandizing or advertising, although, as its fame has spread among the more wellheeled shopper in recent years, it has started advertising in magazines such as Heat and the Sunday Times Style supplement.’ (‘The low-cost retail revolution’, March 2005.)
In the same article, Geoff Lancaster, head of external affairs for Primark’s parent company, Associated British Foods, reveals that his chain has a similar strategy: ‘We don’t have a glossy headquarters. . . Nor do we spend on advertising; it’s word-of-mouth. But we are not cheapskates when it comes to distribution; we’ve invested heavily in logistics.’
As the writer of the article goes on to comment, ‘The tills are buzzing. Primark’s prices are so low, there’s simply no comparison with [Marks & Spencer].’
The seeming inability of Marks & Spencer to respond to these various threats is in large part the cause of its current woes. M&S, which prided itself for years on the fact that it never had to advertise to attract customers, appears to be locked in a protracted and painful decline. Despite closing stores, cutting staff and promising time and time again to get its design act together, the once-respected store is struggling to rejuvenate its ageing clientele.
Fortunately for the other high-street chains, not everybody wants to buy cheap clothing in Spartan surroundings. For fashion-led stores, the rise of bargain-basement brands represents an opportunity as well as a threat. If they continue to develop exciting shopping environments, creative advertising, hawk-eyed buying and cutting-edge design, they can retain customers and justify their prices. ‘Masstige’ is their not-sosecret weapon. A whole range of previously uninspired retailers – Oasis, New Look, Target in the United States (fashionistas have taken to giving it an ironic French inflection, as in ‘Tar-jay’) – have ramped up their creativity with the aid of young designers. Topshop is way ahead of the game, in the United Kingdom, at least. Even before H&M and Zara came along, its flagship store on London’s Oxford Circus was the haunt of beady-eyed stylists and model agency scouts; which led to winking ‘you didn’t hear it from us’ references in the glossies. And although its design has been a cut above the rest for some time, Topshop now has a massluxe range, positioned at a slightly higher price point as a signal to the discerning. However, when writing about the democratization of fashion, there’s no escaping the twin titans of high-street style.

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