This is a good question, posed by our contributor Marcus Jaye this week. His regular musings for our online publication are always worth a read and this week he has been inspired by recent news that John Lewis has signed up 50 new brands to its fashion offer including some, perhaps surprising names, such as the incredibly talented London Fashion Week designer S.S.Daley, whose knits sell for around £500. (He also counts Harry Styles as an investor.) There will also be ready-to-wear from cult Venetian label Barena, which sells tailored jackets for £700-plus.

Will the John Lewis customer go for that? Or will it attract a whole new customer to middle-class Britain's favourite department store? I'm guessing it's banking on the latter. But it should be said that not all the names being added to the fashion roster are quite that directional on prices. Bags are on their way from the brilliant Dragon Diffusion (which offers Bottega-style woven totes at a fraction of the price), as well as elevated essentials from Colourful Standard and contemporary clothing from the likes of Second Female.

This mix of more affordable fashion, blended with "bridge" brand and more directional designer labels is an exciting proposition. It reminds me of the kind of offer you might experience in a good regional branch of Galeries Lafayette in France. Particularly as it will be complemented with a luxury beauty offer. For me, that is a very good thing but I do think, however, its store environments will also need to be elevated to suit this new product range for it to be a success (I'm sure John Lewis has thought of that).

With the demise of stores like Matches (I'm still not over it - it's going to take a long time), it's great to see a truly curated and considered line-up of brands that feel handpicked to speak to a consumer, rather than something depressingly generic. John Lewis and its boss Peter Luis, deserve to be rewarded for the bravery. Let's hope they are.

Jacquemus officially has my attention. After opening flagship stores across the globe and announcing it was joining forces with L'Oréal to launch a beauty line, this week it has made another blockbuster announcement... Simon Porte Jacquemus, the brand's founder, who has been acting as CEO since Bastien Dagzun stepping down in 2023, has handed over the reins to Sarah Benady.

It's clear something big is brewing at the cult-favourite brand as it expands its categories, store presence and leadership team.

Sarah Benady, who was most recently Celine's North America President, is taking the helm, leaving the founder to concentrate on design and the brand’s famous storytelling.

The new CEO said: "When I first spoke with Simon, I immediately felt that he was the designer of our century. There is something very special about him- his energy, his work, his authenticity."

So, Sarah, what have you got in the works for the "designer of the century"?

Marks & Spencer has confirmed its biggest-ever investment in retail pay from 1 April, committing a record £95 million. The latest pay increase comes after the British department store invested £89 million in its UK retail pay and a further £5 million annual investment to enhance its maternity, paternity, and adoption policies last year.

Since 2022, Marks & Spencer has invested more than £285 million in its retail pay package. This marks the third consecutive pay increase under Chief Executive Officer Stuart Machin, who took the helm in May 2022.

It also comes despite new cost pressures from the Government, with Machin acknowledging that both M&S and the wider retail sector will face some significant cost headwinds in the new financial year. However, he has not allowed this to impact the retailer's hourly paid colleagues.

Those who have been in the industry for a while will know that it’s cyclical; bad times pass and better times come. But you could be forgiven if you are feeling like the universe has really tested fashion’s resilience to breaking point in recent years. The quite correct push towards circular practice, geo-politics wreaking havoc on supply chains (also anyone remember that big boat that blocked the Suez canal leaving deliveries stranded?), the ditching of VAT-free shopping, continued iniquity in business rates, NI and minimum wage increases. And, let’s chuck a pandemic and a plague of locusts in for good measure. It’s not exactly been what you’d call fun at times.

And yet, I am struck by the pull of this market. People who have been through the wringer more than once, come back and give it another go and newcomers arrive all the time, drawn in by its magnetism.

I was thinking about this while listening to the founders of Albaray and Florere at TheIndustry.fashion LIVE on Tuesday of this week. The founders told the tales of how they had dusted themselves down after a bruising pandemic for the big brands they had worked in, and went up to set up brands of their own. Both of these brands have found new audiences and are on their way to becoming well-established names on the high street.

Then we heard the story of Norwich-based Blakely, from its COO Andy Gale, which is experiencing exponential growth here and in the EU for its elevated lifestyle fashion. The team behind the brand had no experience in fashion but have done things their way and it’s worked!

All of this (and the incredible market leadership shown by the likes of schuh and Boden, which combine good business with good ethics) raised my spirits this week. Yes, it’s tough. I don’t know when it will get better (please let it be soon) but there is always space for good brands run by good people and the allure of fashion will continue to drive entrepreneurs and consumers for many years to come.

In a nod to its 40^th anniversary, White Stuff this week launched its first archive-inspired collection called ‘Rewind ‘85’, with a campaign starring 80s pop stars Martin Kemp, Toyah Wilcox and Sinitta.

The trio are featured manning the phones at the brand’s call centre in Leicester for customers to purchase their Rewind ’85 items, in what is a throwback to the hotline ordering system White Stuff had in the 80s and 90s.

While it is certainly fun, and customers could actually order from the collection by dialling a special hotline number for three days only (before going into select stores that is), I doubt somehow that Kemp, Toyah and Sinitta would have been your average White Stuff customers back in the mid 80s! Their styles would have been a little bit more ‘out there’ shall we say, as opposed to the revisited half-zip sweatshirts and tees they all sport in the campaign.

Amazing though that White Stuff has been around for such a long time, having originally been founded in 1985 by George Treves and Sean Thomas, who had the idea of designing and selling t-shirts in the Alps to fund their winter ski trips, first sold from the back of an old Citroen 2CV.

Bringing back original styles from archive White Stuff catalogues was actually something requested by the brand’s customers on social media, so fair play to them for following through.