M&S hits U.S. racks

Marks & Spencer says this is the first time its fashion will be sold in physical U.S. stores and notes roughly 51,000 customers visit its U.S. website each year, with about 1-in-10 U.S. consumers aware of the brand and highest awareness among women aged 25–34. (corporate.marksandspencer.com ) Mark Lemming, M&S managing director of international, framed the move as part of an ambition “to build a trusted global brand” by leaning on partners’ infrastructure and repeatable wholesale models. (wwd.com ) The spring campaign that supports the U.S. rollout names Gillian Anderson as M&S’s first-ever “Chief Compliments Officer,” with the campaign film and creative led by agency Mother, directed by Rubberband and set to Yello’s “Oh Yeah.” (marksandspencer.com ) M&S points to the recent U.S. appetite for its food range—sold at Target since 2022—and says its food success (including selling more than 30,000 bags of Percy Pigs weekly) helped justify expanding fashion into U.S. retail. (corporate.marksandspencer.com ) The Nordstrom tie-up follows M&S’s broader wholesale push: last summer it began a first-ever global fashion wholesale partnership with Australia’s David Jones, initially with lingerie and planned expansion into womenswear and menswear. (corporate.marksandspencer.com ) M&S has tested the U.S. market before—opening small-format stores and investing in U.S. retailers in the 1980s before exiting and selling stakes in King’s supermarkets and Brooks Brothers—and analysts in recent coverage called that earlier push costly, prompting the more cautious wholesale approach now. (wwd.com ) (forbes.com )