M&S chief under fire over clothes sales When Sir Stuart Rose, former chairman and chief executive of Marks and Spencer, took the floor at the retailer's annual meetings, he would often wheel out an old fashioned clothes rail. He would pull out a sequinned jacket, or polka dot frock from a rail bursting with M&S styles to make the point to the largely elderly audience that ladies clothing was still worth popping into M&S for. On Tuesday at an often stormy meeting there were no props for Marc Bolland, the current chief executive. I'm not like Stuart. I'm not giving you the rail. I'm just giving you some of the pictures," he said. So against a backdrop of flashing images of floral trousers and a sheepskin coat, Mr Bolland instead wheeled out M&S's worst trading in clothing for more than three years, with womenswear the weakest area. The 6.8 per cent decline in sales of general merchandise including clothing, from stores open for at least a year, is the worst performance since 2008-2009. Mr Bolland laid part of the blame on the unseasonable weather. Sales of women's linen garments, where M&S has a 26 per cent market share, were down 28 per cent, whereas sales of rain macs were up between 25 per cent and 30 per cent. However, he insisted he was not using the weather as an excuse. Instead, some of the stock shortage problems that plagued the final quarter of M&S's last financial year continued into the first quarter of this year. According to Alan Stewart, finance director, this meant that M&S did not have enough of the bestselling styles. M&S sold 105,000 lightweight sweaters, but it could have sold 60,000 more, he says. Bold printed tops were also popular but M&S did not have enough. Rivals and analysts have been questioning whether M&S got its trends wrong this season. They point to the Italian-inspired range, Per Una, where sales have been particularly weak, according to several people familiar with the situation. Although Indigo, the denim-inspired range, is thought to have been performing satisfactorily, Per Una and the core M&S Woman range have been faring less well. Per Una, which was created by George Davies, the fashion entrepreneur, in 2001, originally sat of outside M&S but it has since been brought in-house. The changes have not gone down well with customers, if comments from one private investor at the AGM are to be believed. She describes the Per Una range of old as "not only on trend but sometimes in advance of it, wearable and just that bit edgier than most of the clothing accessible to women in my age group on the high street." Now it "seems to lack focus, any innovation, or imagination. Most of the clothes look like recycled versions of those that were available last year, or even the year before, in ever-more garish colour combinations. Mr Bolland denies the retailer has been off trend. Did we have the styles right? Absolutely. Did we have the pieces on trend? We did," he says. A number of senior clothing executives have left in recent months, which may have been destabilising for such a crucial part of the business. Kate Bostock, head of non-food at M&S and who will leave in October, has been wanting to extricate herself for some time, with Mr Bolland reluctant to let her go, according to people familiar with the situation. M&S has also been trying to move away from the bottom of the market, according to Tony Shiret, a retail analyst. "Any repositioning in a difficult market is high risk," he says. However at the same time M&S has been discounting heavily, which reduces sales in value terms, according to Bethany Hocking, an analyst at Investec Securities. Meanwhile, rivals such as Next, Debenhams, and increasingly John Lewis, have got their acts together in terms of fashion. The task to revive M&S's clothing business now falls to John Dixon, a long-serving and highly regarded executive, but who has no clothing experience. He will be assisted by Belinda Earl, the former chief executive of Debenhams and Jaeger, on a part-time basis, Mr Bolland described the changes in clothing as a "planned succession." With general merchandise accounting for 47 per cent of UK sales, but 53 per cent of UK gross profit last year, according to figures from Investec, there will be much riding on the turnround. If it does not bear fruit, then Ms Bostock's succession may not be the only one being planned for.