Why Mary Portas is Wrong

A few weeks ago to great fanfare on the blogosphere and in the Sunday Supplements, Mary Portas, of Mary Queen of Shops fame launched her own fashion line.  Marketed as the only available alternative for the middle aged woman, it produced various garish tunics to keep us feeling relevant.  This flummoxes me.  There are plenty of places where a middle aged woman with varying stages of middle aged spread can shop and look good, Whistles, Toast, Jigsaw (sometimes), Reiss, Jaeger among many.  What all these labels and Mary Portas' range have in common is the price range, they are all prestige high street prices.  The gap in this market is for decent styling, fabrics and sizing at the lower end of the price bracket.  Yes you can shop in M&S or Next but frankly they are very dull and are not going to make anyone feel like they are on the cutting edge of anything except utter mundanity.  Gap is good for all ages but only for basics, and Zara is so random in it's sizing I for one mainly can't be bothered.  I also have a problem with the quality in Zara, in that it is not very good.  


I do wonder about the motivation for this line, is Mary Portas really so out of touch with the prices the majority of women can afford?  And why is she trying to kid us all that she is saving our sartorial lives?  I for one am off down to Whistles.


Pictured is the no-brainer dress priced at £135, please forgive my sniggering.