Slim pickings

However, rather than feasting on the catwalk shows, high street fashion retailers’ energies will be focused on debating what to do about the slim pickings closer to home.

As the roll call of results begin, a clearer picture will emerge of just how bare cupboards are.

It will start with interims from Next, whose core customer will be hardest hit by the credit crunch, in two weeks. Debenhams’ pre-close will be announced the following week and follows this week's news that its top brass have opted to freeze their pay.

Marks & Spencer’s second-quarter update has been moved forward to early October, prompting concerns of another sharp sales slump.

And, as we turn our backs on the silly season, figures released today will have bought a more serious sense of reality to retail.

As retailers choked on their cornflakes last week – or continental breakfasts in the case of the many who have fled to sunnier climes – when the ONS revealed that retail sales had actually grown by 0.8 per cent in July, today’s CBI figures painted a very different picture.

A balance of -46 per cent of people polled by the CBI reported sales in the first half of this month were lower than a year ago. It is the weakest figure recorded for 25 years.

And, apart from those selling fast fashion to youngsters unencumbered by household bills and unfazed by falling house prices, there is unlikely to be much respite going forwards for fashion.

As the dog days of August draw to a close and the run-up to Christmas begins, the remainder of the year is likely to be overshadowed and perturbed by the size of the sale slump.

A united Moss Bros?

Imagine all the people at Moss Bros living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, and you may be right, but yesterday’s board reshuffle at the beleaguered menswear retailer may go some way towards putting it back on track.

The Gee family, one of the retailer’s founding families and a vocal shareholder, has all but sold its stake in the group and new chairman David Adams has wasted no time in drafting in menswear heavyweight Brian Brick, former boss of Moss Bros rival Speciality Retail Group, as non-executive director.

With this new impetus, fresh blood and the threat of any takeover by largest shareholder Baugur shelved for the immediate term, it should now be able to focus on the job of retailing.

Now is the time for – to steal the buzzword of another party across the pond that should be striving for the same goal – unity.