A Sorry Experience At H&M

As a blogger, I have developed something of a reputation as a high-street champion. It is not an unfortunate or accidental reputation; I make no disguise of the fact that I look for style pieces in a number of places that would make the hardcore tailoring fraternity blink.

While many save and splurge on grand items from vaunted style emporiums, I drop comparatively smaller sums, more steadily, at retailers such as Zara and H&M. As ubiquitous as they are, these retailers have impressed me with their flair, use of better-than-average materials and, most importantly, their prices: for the quality of design, the price is always palatable. I spend as little as some spend on a night out on several items from one of these stores and, though the delight in the bargain is short lived, I am largely satisfied with the longevity of the items I have bought.

My experience of the customer service, or indeed any of the ‘workings’ behind the scenes of one of these gigantic retailers, has been, until recently, rather small. Never had I needed to throw up the great curtain and un-complicate the mighty gears and levers that keep the machines churning. There had been no need.

The thing I already understood about H&M was that stock was uncertain – they get a batch delivery of a mixture of clothing items every single day. What I did not know was that this ‘batch’ changed not due to the demand of clothes in a particular store, or demand across a number of stores, or even if stock in one item was low – replenishing ‘low’ stock was the most obvious and most memorable reason for deliveries that I remember from working in a clothing store.

No, the ‘batch’ was simply an inexplicably haphazard selection of a variety of H&M’s clothing line. It could be a delivery of fifty jackets and hats that hadn’t sold a single unit; if they couldn’t fit on the racks, they’d be in the stock room until sale time when they were generally chucked for less than half price.

I had enquired about a suit; an all wool chalk stripe with a peak lapel and a matching waistcoat and trousers which I had planned to adjust in my own way – new buttons and turn ups. I was given the explanation about ‘batch’ stock and three five digit numbers with which I could contact stores nearby to see if they had the items in question. Having exhausted the list within an hour, with no success, I decided to write to H&M’s UK office – a postal and email address that was irritatingly difficult to find – in the hope that they, in their lofty position on the confusing ‘gears and levers’ tree, would be able to correct. My written letter received no response (no surprise there) but my email, which enquired about the availability of the item was, to my delight, deemed worthy of a reply.

However, any hopes of a response that began ‘Of course we’d be happy to locate the garments you desire…’ were dashed by the first line which read;

“H&M are not able to source any of our garments as we do not work with a computerised system due to a fast stock turnover therefore we are unable to locate stock within stores.”

Boo! What a great disappointment. Although somewhat expected, it was peculiarly exasperating to see what had been until now an embarrassed mumbling from H&M staff in hard and clear lettering. I was pleased to see that I had been correct in one of my expectations – the items I had enquired after were ‘current’ season and should be available in the stores for the next few weeks. The problem was that there were only 24 pairs of trousers and 85 waistcoats (not necessarily in my size) left in the distribution centre. The big setback was that the crucial element to the suit, the jacket, was ‘not being replenished.’ If I could locate one in a store in another location, by ringing around and quoting the five digit code, I might be able to find a pair of trousers and a waistcoat in one of the central London stores, although this was uncertain. What was certain was the great sense of victory I should feel if it all came together in the end for the search had been long and more than a little distressing.

I wrote back to the Wizard of H&M and asked if it was possible to pay for items over the phone, to then have them sent to me by post or perhaps to have them shipped to another store. Although this request seemed hopeful, on reflection it is actually quite reasonable – surely someone in their mythically massive customer service team should be able to organise this paltry request for such a persistent and faithful patron. To my great disappointment, this is the reply I received;

“Unfortunately this is not services that we provide (sic). However customers are able to place garments on hold for 24 hours to collect the garment in store.”

That was it. My special ‘call centre’ for the project, a spreadsheet of numbers and locations, was to be abandoned. Unless I planned to make an (expensive) train journey to Birmingham or Edinburgh there was not a hope in hell. Predictably, I rued my lack of nationwide friends and associates.

The experience, though remarkably unsatisfactory, has provided me with further elucidation on the issue of mass production and mass consumerism. Though I had expected, behind that great curtain, a crunching machine capable of altering a gear or two, instead I found a brick wall, with only a letterbox.

H&M will churn out the clothes by the million, throw them in the stores littered around the world but they’ll be damned if they know what they’ve produced or what they’ve delivered.

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Brand New Dune

In relation to footwear, dear reader, I have a particular problem. I, in a truly Marcosian manner, have lost all concept of the ‘basic’ shoe and my concept of ‘need’ is as skewed as that of William Randolph Hearst. The issue is this; my shoes are well kept and they last a considerable amount of time. Many of you will raise eyebrows in approval, considering that this achievement deserves credit. Fortunately, I am conscious enough about my appearance to ensure the intended triumph of the former but the triumph of the latter is largely down to the fact that I have a peculiar dislike for wearing the same pair of shoes two days in a row.

It’s a kindergarten comment, but the fact remains – the less you wear a pair of shoes, the longer they will last. I have never encountered a cobbler or shoe salesman who peddles a paradoxical and controversial theory that, in actual fact, shoes last longer the more they are worn. For that word, ‘worn’, is not used without reason. Those creations, so carefully and skilfully illuminated in the boutiques of St James’ and Mayfair, are virginal; untouched, unblemished, unwrinkled, unworn. All the care and love in the world will not return a pair of shoes to their pre-worn state; the great problem with shoes is that we need to wear them. A very good pair of shoes, worn every day, will last a good number of years, but how much longer would they last if they were only worn one day a week? For that reason I spread the burden across an ever-growing collection.

My collection is not to the taste of all. It’s a mish-mash, a mixture of Jermyn Street and the high street. The shoes are not of equal quality; some I foresee lasting a good deal longer than others, but there are some shoes that I am surprisingly pleased with. My three pairs of Dune shoes are among my favourites. Firstly, they are of a pleasing shape. The toe is slightly squared but the profile is rather classic which makes for a stylish design that is a cross between contemporary and traditional. Secondly, it is clear that the creative team at Dune for Men take risks with their shoes. I have a pair of their head-turning peanut-butter leather and black patent co-respondents that consistently receive compliments and enquiries.

The real value in Dune shoes is precisely that – the value. They are priced at £85. While not exactly a bargain-basement price, finding good leather shoes of decent construction and interesting design for less than £100 is notoriously difficult. I bought each pair of mine in the sale, at a 40% discount. For roughly £150 I have three pairs of shoes that I adore. There are certainly better shoes out there, but for that price?

Shoe purists certainly scoff at the ‘high street’ image of the brand, the fact that Dune is chiefly a manufacturer of women’s shoes and that the men’s section is, embarrassingly, a side show. They might even take issue with the quality of the leather (which, in my opinion, is satisfactory for the price), but there is no doubt that achieving this kind of footwear, in that price bracket, is only possible with Dune.

When I paid a visit to George Cleverley’s little boutique in the Royal Arcade, the interesting and kindly store keeper remarked on my canvas and tan co-respondents; “You’ve got a very nice pair of shoes on yourself sir, where are they from?” When I informed him they were from Dune he was understandably nonplussed; “Never heard of them, and I’ve been making shoes for 56 years!” I calmly informed him that it was unsurprising that he had never heard of Dune as they were scarcely in the league of distinguished bespoke shoemakers. The benevolent twinkle in his eye indicated, with that remark, I had been excessively disparaging.

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Sartorial Love/Hate: Fedora

I adore hats. I have quite a few of them but nowhere near the number I should like to own. For my next purchase, I am rather taken with the idea of a Homburg.

I haven’t always liked headgear. It is only due to recent maturation that I have taken to hat-aspiration. It was very hard to get excited about the kind of headwear that dominated the school and varsity scene; if it was a particularly chilly day, you wore a beanie. And despite the physical pleasure in wearing a head-warmer of this style, it is an amateurish design. No matter how luxurious brands like Burberry Prorsum upgrade the beanie to some vicuna-cashmere, hand-knitted deluxe tea-cosy, it will always be a beanie – no milliner worth their salt would acknowledge it as anything else.

The advantage of a beanie is that no one seems to find it particularly distracting or conspicuous. It barely alters the day’s ensemble; the silhouette remains the same. It is favoured by gentlemen of many a generation, chiefly because it is a cheap, effective and unobtrusive method of keeping warm. The problem? Well, it’s not exactly elegant. It doesn’t have the presence that other headgear offers; the rakish brims, the altered silhouettes. It is, by comparison, disappointingly anonymous.

A fedora, by way of contrast, is precisely the opposite. So noticeable are fedoras, hats that were worn by nearly every metropolitan gentleman just over half a century ago, that when I saw a fedora-wearing gentleman walking towards me on St James’ Street, more than six pairs of John Bull eyes turned and scrutinized the wearer. A gentleman no longer needs to wear an unusual hat to attract attention – he simply needs to wear a hat.

The fedora was a popular item of headgear in the early twentieth century, firstly for women and latterly for middle-of-the-road men. It was ubiquitous; on streets, in cinemas, on tradesmen, lawyers, screen stars and sportsmen. By the end of the 1950s, it was rarely seen as the fashion moved towards hats with smaller brims (for example, the trilby) to complement the clothing styles. By the mid-sixties, the writing was on the wall; JFK had been the first president not to wear a hat on distinctly ‘hat’ occasions and living with headgear had become not only unfashionable but undesirable. The only men still wearing fedoras into the late 60s and early 70s were of an older generation.

Those who wear fedoras love them but they can receive very different responses from others. When I wore a black fedora with a double-breasted jacket earlier on this year, one of the more pleasant responses I received was ‘Ahh, nice hat mate but…you don’t really need to wear one though? I mean, you’re still young.’ Other responses rhymed with ‘banker’, ‘glosser’ and ‘grass-mole’ and it made me consider that there are still plenty of people who are unwilling to allow the fedora to make any kind of renaissance.

I tend not to wear mine very much, which I greatly regret, due to it being such a ‘statement’ hat; it has nothing on my silk top hat or straw boater but, bizarrely, in their own context those models are apparently more tolerable – every mucker, irrespective of class or generation, wears a topper and boater to Ascot and Henley. The ‘statement’ about the hat is that it is an everyday item and that, if I chose to, I could wear it everyday as many millions of men before me once did.

As such, my fedora – a present from a dear relative who admired and cheered my interest in old fashions – sits on my shelf; dusty and rather sad; an unfortunate victim of sartorial love/hate.

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Turn It Up

I think there is another reason why women are referred to as the ‘fairer’ sex; their sense of justice. If I want to share imbalanced, humorous, taboo conversations I choose the company of my male friends; in a bar, restaurant or at the club, we guffaw and gibe with typical masculine vigour. We act as countless generations of men have acted when they sat down together to marinade in each others company. We like to think we’re funny, we possibly are. We are certainly capable of entertaining each other. But rarely are we fair.

It’s no surprise that men have found new outlets for their bias and ‘I am always right’ rants. The peacock, strutting proudly into the virtual world, has a new arena in which to exhibit his plumage. Online style and style-critique forums are not only arenas of clothing analysis but parade-ground for men who wish to assert their masculinity. It is true that women can be vicious when it comes to ‘competing’ with each other but men are worse. The most poisonous arguments can develop about button choice, cuff length or lapel width – a fact which completely nullifies any claim men have to being ‘more rational’ than women – and resentment and envy are rife.

Whereas women obsess with what looks good, men - the strutting, proud peacocks – often try not to acknowledge ‘good’ in others but compete childishly on what is ‘correct.’ Excruciatingly sanctimonious, men quote from style scriptures and style clerics in the fashion of some odiously pious fundamentalist. I remarked to a friend recently that I am very much in favour of turn-ups, even in single-breasted suits and he agreed. However, there was a dark cloud in my thinking. Something in me told me that there would be ire of volcanic proportions awaiting such a proposition.

The ‘correct’ style for single-breasted suit trousers is non turn-up; the ‘correct’ style for double-breasted suit trousers is ‘turn-up.’ The apparently ‘correct’ style for odd trousers and jackets is ‘turn-up.’ Some are so close to adhering these codes that anything else, no matter how artistically complete and satisfying, is utterly laughable. If I were to choose turn-ups for all trousers, in some quarters this would make me a laughing stock. However, I have my reasons for liking this style, however hilarious it might be to the devout.

Firstly, turn-ups add structure to the bottom of the trouser which is perfect in pleated trousers as it ensures that the pleat is correctly represented all the way to the shoe. Secondly, turn-ups are a point of interest and detail in an otherwise boring item of clothing – buttons on jacket sleeves are generally useless but they have the same effect – and thirdly, if the trousers are cut correctly, turn up trousers look smarter than non-turned up trousers. This is perhaps why they are favoured in smarter suits such as the double-breasted, but it is confusing that, as a smarter and more unusual flourish on single-breasted suits, they should be so surprising.

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Short And Tight. But What’s Next?

One of the most interesting aspects of men’s clothing is that our tolerance for trends is actually greater than we’d like to admit. Although the writing here at Mensflair is largely a sober contrast to the histrionic gushing on fashion-following forums, a rejection of faddism and label-worship, there are essential, and unavoidable, elements of trend that are little acknowledged. If someone chooses to tell me that I am fashionable or that I simply “must know about fashion” merely because I take an extraordinary interest in clothes, I bristle with intolerance; I generally believe, rather arrogantly and naively, that I am actually unfashionable. I have been wearing, I point out, bow ties before they became a season trend. I also say that my style is too antiquated to possibly be fashionable.

However, what am I avoiding in this analysis? Why am I paying so much attention to minor detail when the fundamental, substantial issues, the sort of things that are only glaringly obvious to other people, are telling a different story?

My jackets, much as I like to believe they are of a ‘classic’ and ‘timeless’ style are a product of recent fashion. Most of them are actually rather short and, in comparison with the prevailing style of other decades, rather tightly fitting. I was bought suits ‘of a fashion’ in the 1990s by classical loving parents that offered the typical Nineties aesthetic; length, little definition in the waist and much broader shoulders. They are items that claim to be the same size, and often smaller, than the items I now wear and yet they feel two sizes too large. When I try these old items on, they not only look dated but they also look wrong; much as skinny ties began to look wrong in the 1970s, and flares began to wrong in the 1980s and shoulder pads began to look wrong in the 1990s.

Fashion is everywhere and affects virtually everything; it beats away your acceptance of trend peculiarities, enforces you to accept the new as the norm and makes you revile what you once loved.

Another case in point is the slimness of trousers. Leaving aside skinny jeans, which I do wear and (perhaps naively) believe are more timeless and adaptable than ‘baggy’ jeans, fashion has done more to our perceptions and understanding of our lower half than we would care to acknowledge. How many times have straight fit, slim trousers been advocated on this site? And how much credit is fashion afforded for this? Even in the tailoring world, a world that does not need to follow the glittering, market-driven, paparazzi influence of fashion, customers are frequently told “Well, gentlemen are wearing their trousers much slimmer these days, sir.”

When I tried on a pair of old Iceberg jeans that were, at the time, comparatively slim, I saw a trouser I would now consider too large. The waist was fine – ten years have not added much in the way of ‘excess’ to my waistline – but the overall style of the jeans was, to this contemporary eye, very confusing. Before I put them on, I remembered, vaguely, the last time I wore them. I remembered the shoes I wore them with, the restaurant I wore them to, the girl whose hand I held as we strolled along the street; they were the height of fashion and I had been teased for them being ‘tight’ by less fashion-conscious chums.

Of course, times change: the friends change, the girl changed and even the street changed. I had expected the same jeans 10 years and 100 fashion-fads later. As a garment, they were unrecognisable to me; two nil to fashion.

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