Marks & Spencer has launched a huge half-price clothing sale as the high street shutdown leaves retailers with mountains of unsold spring and summer fashion. The retailer has called the promotional blitz a “rainbow sale” and is handing 10% of takings to NHS charities. The sale promises shoppers discounts of at least 50% across the store. The womenswear offers include summer dresses reduced from £40 to £15 and half-price jumpsuits at £29. The retailer has also confirmed its new clothing and homewares boss, Richard Price, will arrive in July. M&S poached Price, the head of Tesco’s F&F clothing and homeware label, last November but no start date had been confirmed. He has worked at M&S before, for seven years, but left in 2012 after becoming disillusioned with the retailer’s strategy at the time. Price is returning to M&S as the pandemic sends shockwaves through the retail industry. High street retailers have been scrabbling to cancel stock orders for next season as the impact of the crisis points to weak demand for the rest of the year. M&S has been trying to reinvent itself for nearly two decades but under the current chief executive, Steve Rowe, and its chairman, Archie Norman, the retailer is redesigning its fashion and food ranges to broaden its appeal and attract more young families – essentially the same demographic as F&F. Rowe said Price was joining M&S at a crucial time: “I am confident that his leadership will accelerate the transformation of our clothing and home business and build on the improvements in product, value and availability over the past year.” Price, who also ran the now defunct department store chain BHS for three years, is a more orthodox choice than his predecessor Jill McDonald, a former boss of Halfords and McDonald’s who had no fashion experience before joining M&S. She was sacked after bad buying decisions left the company with what Rowe said were the worst stock levels “I have ever seen in my life”. M&S, which is due to report its annual results next week, has already scrapped its final dividend and told shareholders not to expect payouts in 2021 either as it battens down the hatches. The retailer said its clothing and homeware business had been “severely constrained during lockdown”. Independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said the rainbow sale looked to be “quite a clever way of covering up the fact that M&S is having to sell a mountain of surplus clothing’”. M&S is donating 10% of the purchase price, excluding VAT, of all rainbow sale items to NHS Charities Together. Shoppers can get online orders via a contactless home delivery service or from collection points in stores situated next to food halls. They will also be able pick up bargains in the retailer’s 290 shared clothing and food branches, which have kept sections of their fashion floors open to sell clothing essentials.