Marks & Spencer to boost its own brands with £600m facelift of stores

Chief executive Marc Bolland has earmarked £600m to help to make the 703-strong chain of M&S shops easier to navigate and also to make the retailer’s own brands, such as Per Una, Limited Collection and Autograph, more distinctive.

The plans, which will run for three years, will see “shops within shops” created for the brands with each getting its own labelling, shop fittings and lighting.

Mr Bolland is said to want to turn the in-house brands into labels in their own right, a process that has already seen adverts just for the Autograph range.

The food division revamp is expected to include the introduction of delicatessen counters in food departments and 100 new international brands to be exclusively sold in M&S.

The retailer’s new store at the high profile Westfield shopping centre, adjacent to the site of the 2012 Olympics and which opens tomorrow, will include key elements of the new approach with other stores to start to incorporate the new layouts in the autumn.

This latest revamp comes just two years after former chairman Stuart Rose spent £2bn on a facelift for M&S and at a time when retailers are facing their tougher trading conditions in decades.