We want to save M&S

My husband thinks he, along with everyone else, has the perfect makeover solution to the unending doldrums of the nation's favourite store, M&S, which is suddenly in play again. "I can't understand why the new chief executive, or the new owners, don't abandon fashion completely," he argues (on the basis of his own entirely unvariegated shopping trolley, of course), "and just sell food, socks and pants."

He has a point, no? The most successful branches of Marks & Spencer (and I should point out that I am making this sweeping retail analysis solely on the basis of my patronage of our month-old Notting Hill store on the site of Damien Hirst's defunct Pharmacy restaurant) are the niche ones called Simply Food.

But still, I can't imagine the launch of a high-concept chain called "Simply Pants" taking off in quite the same way on the high streets of Middle England.

Not yet, anyway, even though Agent Provocateur and Myla are doing big box-office right now.

And M&S has been selling us clothes (note, I am carefully not using the word "fashion" ) for more than a century.

M&S introduced us to the avocado. To the cook-chill meal. To the four-pack of waisted underpants (with cotton gusset and control panel). I can't see the new owners throwing in the towel just yet (that will presumably happen at the Lifestore in Gateshead, if it happens at all).

Anyway, I'm as fond of M&S as the next woman, its racks of size 20 polycotton slacks, its droopy cardigans and its alarmingly-hued swimwear in cerise and electric blue. To me, there is something profoundly reassuring about its continuing inability to keep up with cheaper, fleeter rivals Topshop, Zara, and Miss Sixty. And the fact that when my husband needs a new jumper, as he does every year, I can replace his old, holey one with an exact same navy lambswool sweater and he'll never know the difference.

And, like everyone I know, I have items in my hanging cupboard as well as my knicker drawer which I've bought from M&S - and I've even left the St Michael label in, to show that I can do high street and spot "finds" as cannily as the next shopper: my wafty turquoise kaftan with sequins, for example. Some shorts. And my most recent purchase: a pair of highheeled sandals in cotton ticking. Trust me, they are sheer Stella McCartney edgy chic and come in several colours, or "colourways" as we say in the trade.

Plus, I once worked as a checkout girl at the "flagship" store at Marble Arch. I worked in foods, wearing a thin, nylon coverall dress, and spent hours shivering in the cold store, filling shelves and anxiously checking the bananas for spiders (they were huge). The pay wasn't great - £100 a week - but the perks, for a glutton like me, certainly were.

At lunchtime, you got to eat your own body weight in seafood lasagne or profiteroles in the staff canteen, and at the end of the day, after you had closed the till, you got to buy food past its sell-by date at half price. I'll never forget how most people never looked at me or said thank you as they paid. So I feel an unshakeable loyalty to this national institution and make a creepy effort to make eye contact with the checkout staff as a result.

Yesterday, as a nation wondered what was going to happen to their local branch, I headed off to mine, in Whiteleys in Bayswater - not to trip down memory lane, but to buy a skirt for my 10-year-old daughter Charlotte, on half-term. "Eeuw," she said, as we entered the clothes area. "Why's everything all crinkly?"

As you may have guessed, we were deep in Per Una, and all the clothes were indeed crinkly or peasanty or tie-dyed and in violent shades of dark pink. There were T-shirt dresses with crocheted straps, sludgy cotton cardigans, a line of beachwear including some flirty, wispy pareos, but nothing I actually wanted.

And nor did she - the reliably hideous childrenswear had Simply Disappeared, as had everything else except the highfashion "speziale" and "hand-finished" Per Una range.

Sadly, there was no sign of the supposed younger, trendier range of clothing, Per Una Due, also designed by George Davis of Asda fame. It was Per Una or nothing, apart from some men's pants and socks (how my husband would have approved).

I had read, somewhere among the premature obituaries for the brand, that the Per Una pale pink boucle suit gave Chanel's a run for its money. So I grabbed a size 14 (there were no size 12s, okay) and tried it on. I thought it was pretty good, actually, and if I had a wedding to go to, I would have bought it, and maybe the long bouclé coat too. My daughter had more of a Trinny and Susannah reaction.

"Mum, it looks like you're wearing a flannel," she hissed. "Take it off."

So, having been and seen, my exclusive makeover tip to the new owners, if there are to be new owners, is this: your fashion range is pointlessly overdesigned. Tell George to lose the logos, the linings, the little applique butterflies and hearts, the patterns, and concentrate once again - for Britain - on getting plain clothes right again.

We want plain T-shirts, plain tailoring (you have to hunt for it, but the linen and safari-wear is a model of its kind) and uncluttered looks.

Simply Food is good, Simply Pants and Socks would please the menfolk, but Simply Basics would be a winner.