The big retail story at M&S in recent years has been all about it shutting full-line stores that carry clothing and focusing on food-only spaces. But now, it’s signalled a potential change of strategy as it’s to trial a shop selling only fashion and beauty and not food.

The standalone store will be branded Marks & Spencer and will open in the Battersea Power Station mall this autumn. That’s an interesting choice of location given how health and beauty retailer Boots also chose it to open a beauty-only store that doesn’t carry its wider pharmacy goods.

The M&S offer will include an edited women’s and menswear offer with a more premium edge, and despite being mainly about clothing will also include beauty products with the company having ramped up its offer on this side of the business in recent years.

CEO Stuart Machin said the test store will “showcase the best of M&S clothing and beauty at outstanding value”. And if the trial is a success, we can expect more such stores around the UK.

The new strategy underlines the revival in its fashion fortunes as its newer collections appeal to a wide spread of UK consumers after years of attempting to turn around its fortunes.

M&S’s two key division are Food and Clothing & Home and they show the sometimes contradictory nature of what it sells. For decades it made a fortune from selling items like underwear and knits alongside cakes, joints of meat and fresh fruit. The supermarkets sector eventually caught on to the potential there but M&S itself struggled with this non-complementary mix from the turn of the millennium.

Then a new strategy under CEO Steve Rowe and his successor Stuart Machin gave a bigger priority to foods.

But despite closing some locations selling clothing, the company was also working to improve its fashion offer, led by former Tesco clothing boss Richard Price at the helm of Clothing & Home and ex-Topshop stalwart Maddy Evans in charge of women’s fashion specifically. This has been paying off in recent periods and helping to drive sales higher, its recent collab with Sienna Miller being a good example of its renewed confidence and fashion sector clout.