LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - British clothing retailer Marks &Spencer said it has teamed up with model and TVpresenter Alexa Chung on a fashion collection, seeking to repeatthe success it enjoyed last year when Chung was photographedwearing one of its skirts.
Last month M&S said Steve Rowe, the current head of itsgeneral merchandise business, would succeed Marc Bolland aschief executive in April. Rowe's biggest task is to reviveclothing, which saw a slump in sales overChristmas.
The 132-year-old high street stalwart said on Thursday thenew 31-piece womenswear collection, which will launch in April,was curated and handpicked by Chung and is focused on bringingback to life items from the group's extensive archive.
It said the project is the first of the retailer's 'M&S &'series, a sequence of collaborations with designers, brands andfashion icons.
Last year a 199-pound ($292) seventies-style brown suede M&Sskirt was a massive hit after it was lauded by Vogue magazineand worn by Chung, selling 4,500 in the six weeks after launch.
"It's an ideal and clever pairing. Alexa is an avidsupporter of British fashion and nothing is more so than M&S, soshe'll make for a great contemporary ambassador as well," saidJessica Bumpus, a freelance fashion journalist who has workedfor Vogue, The Wall St Journal and The New York Times.
Shares in M&S, down 23 percent over the last three months,were up 1.9 percent at 417.3 pence at 1128 GMT.($1 = 0.6825 pounds) (Reporting by James Davey and Limei Hoang; Editing by GregMahlich)