M&S and John Lewis released new fashion collections on the same day. There was one clear winner

My alarm was set for 7am, the laptop fully charged, fresh coffee made and my shopping list beside me. I, like thousands of other women around the UK, was poised and ready to buy up the most exciting fashion collaboration of the year: M&S x Bella Freud.

I had expected it to drop at 8am, but when I opened the M&S homepage at 7.30am on Thursday morning, it was already available to shop. I was lucky enough to get everything I wanted, bar the pinstripe miniskirt, which like several other pieces had sold out within minutes. Who knew M&S shoppers were fans of such high hemlines? M&S, evidently, has done its homework.

It was one of two major high street collaborations that launched on Thursday, the other being John Lewis x A.W.A.K.E. Mode. But by 10am it was clear that one had been significantly more commercially successful than the other. While the Bella Freud slogan knits and tailoring had largely sold out online, all of A.W.A.K.E. Mode’s avant garde tailoring pieces were still available to shop in every size.

As a fashion editor, I saw this coming. In the days leading up to the launch, every woman I encountered was buzzing about the Bella Freud collection. It was the topic of conversation at the office tea station. Friends exchanged messages eyeing up which pieces they were planning to buy. Various Instagram influencers received items ahead of time, meaning my social media feed was full of models showing it off. This frisson told me that it was going to sell as fast as Taylor Swift tickets, hence my early morning shopping strategy.

The thinking woman’s slogan knit

In an age where a new fashion collaboration is announced every five minutes, this is rare. I tend not to get caught up in the hype, with the exception of Anya Hindmarch for Uniqlo this time last year. But like many British women, I’ve loved Bella Freud knits, which cost upwards of £245, ever since I saw them on Kate Moss and Alexa Chung in the early-to-mid 2000s.

The designer – a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and daughter of the late artist Lucien Freud – developed a following for her jumpers featuring slogans which pay homage to the beatnik era. Jane Birkin, poet Allan Ginsberg and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard – they suggest the wearer is au fait with these cultural references too; the thinking woman’s slogan knit.

“Even if you don’t know who Bella Freud is as a designer, you’ll want one of those jumpers, whether you’ve seen one on Kate Moss or Claudia Winkleman. They are for everyone, just like M&S,” says Virginia Norris, co-founder of PR agency Aisle 8, which works with high street giants including Mango, Reiss, Sezane, Missoma, as well as with M&S in the past.

“Most high street retailers have logo or word tees and sweatshirts that have become bestsellers year-on-year, which drive huge volumes for them,” she explains. “People love logos and being able to wear things that are clearly identifiable and Bella Freud does this on so many levels.”

Taste and direction, but not a sell-out success

In contrast, not a soul outside of the fashion desk mentioned A.W.A.K.E. Mode’s collaboration to me before its launch. The brand is unquestionably cool and has a loyal following, but perhaps it was just too niche of a label for the John Lewis customer to appreciate.

Wearability and price point are critical too. There’s nothing too complicated about wearing a jumper or a suit – Bella for M&S has a good mix of fitted and oversized shapes, some in cashmere, others in wool, nothing too scary or priced over £139. Some of the A.W.A.K.E. Mode pieces are tempting, such as the £149 red cable-knit off-the-shoulder jumper, but the £399 cape coat was a bit of a misfire – surely that exaggerated oversized shape isn’t going to find its fan base in John Lewis?

The A.W.A.K.E. Mode collaboration wasn’t conceived with sell-out potential in mind: it was set up via the British Fashion Council which, in celebration of 40 years of London Fashion Week, wants to introduce younger contemporary labels to high street audiences – an important mission.

“John Lewis is a £1bn plus fashion business, and our philosophy with collaborations is to create unique, one-of-a-kind collections that excite customers,” explains Rachel Morgans, John Lewis’s director of fashion. “This collection is unexpected and distinctive on purpose, we wanted to give our customers something new to discover while they shop with us for their favourite brands.

“It is very important for us as a patron of the BFC to support younger contemporary labels, using our national platform to expose them to high street audiences,” she continues. “The reaction so far has been phenomenal, with bestsellers including the red knitted dress and asymmetric stripe top, and customers shopping both in our stores and on our website. In just 24 hours we’ve beaten our weekly sales forecast for the collection, driven by a mixture of both existing and new customers.”

It is also a brand positioning opportunity for John Lewis, indicating a certain level of taste and direction of its creative team, Norris says: “I love A.W.A.K.E. Mode, it’s a fashion insiders’ brand and it does something else entirely for John Lewis in terms of the company’s fashion credentials. [But John Lewis] needs a crowd pleaser collaboration right now to get that groundswell of brand love it deserves.”

This battle of the retail institutions comes at a time when the high street is saturated with collaborations. This season alone there is Barbour x Alexa Chung, Cult Gaia x Gap, Roxanda x George at Asda, Clare Waight Keller jewellery for Reformation, Tabitha Simmonds x Next, Reiss x Les 100 Ciels, Farm Rio x Adidas… each is trying to entice customers to buy something newsworthy, and now – these limited edition products might be gone tomorrow.

M&S finally work out what customers want

In fact they’re having such a moment, the original high street collaborators are making a return too: Zara is launching a partywear collection with Kate Moss in November, harking back to the glory days of 2007, when the supermodel joint forces with Topshop in a launch that shut down half of London’s Oxford Street.

To stand out now, a collaboration needs to tick several boxes: wearability, affordability and desirability. M&S has all of that, but the real X-factor with the Bella Freud slogan knits, the one which sold me, is that they’re in the same font as the £300 versions; you can really pass them off as designer.

“This is a real coup for M&S and a continuation for the brand on its trajectory in fashion recently,” says Norris. “They’re working with all the right much-loved fashion influencers and it’s really paying off.”

Alas, they won’t be restocked, M&S tells the Telegraph, which only adds to the appeal. After years of trying and failing to find its fashion feet, the retailer has finally worked out what its customer wants. Now it’s up to John Lewis to try and pull off the same feat.