Six must-have M&S styles that are flattering, anti-ageing and an astonishing bargain – but they’ll sell out fast

Marks & Spencer’s spring/summer collection was unveiled in its London showroom off Oxford Street yesterday and standards are higher than they’ve ever been.

Value for money and a reliable finish has always been a given with M&S. But lately it’s been honing the cuts and fabrics, sharpening the attention to detail and cherry-picking discerningly from the catwalks to give it a fashion edge to compete with the best on the high street.

Its mission over the past 18 months has been to become the name people associate not just with knickers and bras, Dad shirts and posh biscuits but quality, leading-edge fashion. This it has achieved, in part, thanks to last October’s Bella Freud collection (M&S’s most successful fashion collaboration ever, apparently) and a couple of winning Sienna Miller campaigns. And it has kept on going under the assured direction of Maddy Evans, director of M&S womenswear, and Lisa Illis, head of womenswear design – and now gone one better.

Being the shop women think of when they’re looking for jeans, a summer dress and linen co-ords is one thing (and M&S is still very much that place). Coming up with clothes and accessories that get the nod from the eagle-eyed front-row fashion editors is something else altogether.

And with this new collection, M&S is officially on the fashion pack’s radar. Whereas in the past these hardest-to-please shoppers might have found their building blocks in J Crew or Gap, now they’re heading straight to M&S.

They know it guarantees quality (the buttons won’t fall off, the zips won’t break) and value for money (55 per cent of its summer fashion offering is under £30).

Now it’s offering fashion-forward shapes and fabrics including luxey looking textured viscose and exceptional suede and leather, real and fake.

The mood of fashion is increasingly buy well, buy to last, buy to look expensive – not throwaway – and buy because it will make a difference to how you feel. M&S has gradually ticked all the boxes including the big one: She who knows has got to have it.

The hot item this season – the one the fashion editors are eyeing up, if not already wearing – is the Little Brown Suede Jacket.

So what does a fashion editor do if they haven’t got several thousand pounds to spend on a 1970s-style suede jacket from New York label Khaite, or the Miu Miu tan suede aviator?

She nips into M&S. 

Actually, she sets her alarm for dawn tomorrow when an Autograph suede four-button, boxy jacket with two front patch pockets (£279, marksandspencer.com) goes on sale.

It’s all in the details: the soft leather, the warm tobacco brown colour, the perfect length – cropped on the hip – the extended button cuff so you can wear them pushed back, shirt style. (Half the design team were wearing this jacket, different ways, at the collection’s launch yesterday).

And that’s not the only suede M&S is nailing.

A tan suedette car coat (£59) that went viral a month ago is now being restocked in a chocolate colour for June, and the team has high hopes for a long, tan, suedette trench – incredible value at £79 and soft as butter.

But even those who’ve got their hands on the boxy jacket will be queuing up for the Per Una short suede trench (£299): unlined, no buttons and belted, in rich mole brown, it looks and feels designer.

These are clothes you’ll have in your wardrobe forever and your daughter will be borrowing, too.

M&S’s suede loafers are also gaining legendary status. Its Bournville chocolate suede style (£55) – which looks not unlike Saint Laurent’s £715 ‘Le Loafer’ – has been a viral hit, selling out instantly, and was the footwear of choice for

several editors front row at the autumn/winter collections earlier this month.

Now M&S is repeating the style – a restock is due in April – and although brown suede is still at number one, the new black leather version is a great fall back – it’s smarter and will give you more wear come the autumn.

What else? There’s a slouchy tan suede bag with gold hoop detail in the new collection (£99) that’s pure boho girl about town – and wouldn’t look out of place at French fashion house Chloé. M&S’s version has just the right amount of slouch and polish, not to mention price, to make those in the know add it to their bag list.

The cream barrel jeans (£29.50) are an easy everyday staple. And M&S’s crop lightweight utility jacket in pale khaki (£65) – another style that’s been trending on TikTok – is sharply cut and crisply finished, as well as being easily dressed up or down – all things the fashion set look for.

And look at the price. Elsewhere you’d expect to spend twice as much and you wouldn’t dare clean it.

The just-right pink dress, a sleeveless flared midi in a crinkle viscose (£45), is another stand-out piece that the fashion set will wear (without the wrap-around belt, perhaps) with a light jacket on top.

Lightweight and light pink, the colour of the season, are both catnip for fashion editors who want something they can wear from breakfast to bar and the texture of this feels luxurious and modern.

And last but not least there’s Marks & Spencer’s huge offering of holiday wear which ranges from The White Lotus-friendly one-shoulder dresses and sparkly sequin vests to fresh linen separates.

Come May, when these high-summer pieces are due in store, you can bet there will be an unseemly scramble for those great-looking soft linen striped brown and cream co-ords (the top and trousers are both £59).

This is M&S for everyone – fashion editors included.

The M&S spring/summer collection is available tomorrow at 8am online; 9am in store.