Gentle readers: if you were to go into that bastion of English women’s knickers through the ages, Marks & Spencer, looking for tights/stockings, where would you look first?
If you’re like me, you’d head for the lingerie department, which is exactly what I did a few weeks ago in M&S Oxford Street. The store is currently undergoing quite a major refurb, so when I couldn’t find the stockings where I expected to find them, I assumed it was because the entire shop is a bit topsy turvy at the moment. I did think it was a bit odd that they had been moved to the basement, next to the food hall, but was just pleased to have actually found them at all, so didn’t question it too much.
Yesterday I went into Fenchurch Street M&S, again in search of stockings. Once again, I headed for the lingerie department. Once again, however, I discovered no nylons. This store, in contrast with the Oxford Street one, is shiny and new and in full working order – no workmen or dust blowing around – so there seemed no reason for tights to be anywhere other than their rightful place: next to the knickers. In confusion, I asked a shop assistant, who directed me two floors down.
Into the food hall.
Call me crazy, but I suspect that the person currently responsible for the store layouts in M&S may just be a man.
mmm stockings. I bet you look simply delicious in them.
If I were to design a shop everything would be in a straight line from the entrance and would be clearly labelled and signposted. I’d only need two signs. Essentials and fluff because I is manly and tuff.
It’s probably some marketing, shopping psychology thing to get you to spend more money.
You bimble up to the lingerie dept, buy some tights and leave. In the food dept, you bimble in, pick up some tights and then have to walk past the cakes. “Oooh look cake. I better buy one”
Something like that anyway.
You may well be on to something there, Cha0. Although I think it’s more along the lines of if they hide the tights in the most unlikely place, women will spend all bloody afternoon searching for them and then by the time they’ve found them they’ll need large amounts of Dervla Kirwan filthy food to keep body and soul together.
That’s how it works for me, anyhow …
No… a bloke would have put them next to the remote controlled cars, and have had a ‘buy a pair of stockings and get a free remote controlled car for your bloke’ promotion…
Chaotic has saved me pointing out the obvious.
Mmm. Someone mentioned Cake. And you blogged about stockings.
This is the best web page ever.
I never ever shop for lingerie at a mall. It is always small boutiques. That way I can easily avoid the temptations on the way.
I think it’s to facilitate the antics of would-be thieves; no longer having to struggle through the erotic and exotic lingerie section trying to discretely pick out a pair that will adequately obscure their visage; they can now just pick up some, along with cheese and biscuits and a bottle of champers for the “job well done” party afterwards…
I never thought M&S would shack up with the criminal fraternity … but… in these days of dwindling sales, I guess needs must…
X
Mas: I am shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you! M&S: criminal masterminds? I can feel the very fabric of society crumbling around my ears.
Does fabric crumble? I mean really?
Never mind. The Online Etymology Dictionary has come to my aid once again.
fabric
1483, “building, thing made,” from M.Fr. fabrique, from L. fabrica “workshop,” from faber “artisan who works in hard materials.” Sense evolved via “manufactured material” (1753) to “textile” (1791). Fabricate is c.1450, from L. fabricatus, pp. of fabricare “to fashion, build,” from fabrica. In bad sense of “to tell a lie,” etc., it is first recorded 1779.
crumble
O.E. *crymelan, presumed freq. of gecrymman “to break into crumbs,” from cruma (see crumb). The -b- is probably on analogy of Fr. words like humble, where it belongs. Crummy “easily crumbled” (1567) yielded a slang sense of “poorly made” (1859), but probably was influenced by mid-19c. slang crumb “body louse” (cf. lousy).
Hurrah for The Online Etymology Dictionary. Hurrah!
I thought that the ability to find things in large shops was hard-wired into the female DNA. When looking for something slightly outré, like maple syrup or old-fashioned shaving soap, I know there’s no point in going to a large department store as I can’t normally find a bass drum in a telephone booth and am far too frightened to ask the staff and risk the derisive curl of the lip (almost as bad as a friend of mine who went to Beijing and entered a foreigner-orientated shop, asking the assistant in a hoarse whisper where he could buy some condoms. She didn’t know, and shouted across the shop to her colleagues at the top of her voice, setting off a whole angelic choir of giggles). But did you actually find edible underwear in the M&S food hall? Some of us would love to know, if only to save us having to ask in future.
ohhhh like in sainsburys etc. how generic. in posh new plymouth store they are in the knicker dept. but for how long!!!
No no no no no. Tights, stockings, knickers. Gerls drenk arse.
I only think of M & S with purity (despite Dervla Kirwan and her food porn adverts) – they do GREAT shirts and FANTASTIC sandwiches.
It works for me. I see a skimpy pair of knickers and start salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
(I’ll get me coat)