And though the focus was on men, shopping at Next was also presented as a shared experience, a form of 'togetherness ' for the modern couple, as the Daily Express gushed."5 Advertising and store sitings promoted Next for Men as a mirror-image of Next women's wear. Shop openings in Romford and Reading in the spring of 1984 worked with this strategy, for as press statements announced: 'men and women (or at least their clothes) complemented each other beauti­ fully. '"6 The aim was both practical and ideological. 'Twinned' stores would, as Davies explained, help to draw in the male partners of 'Next women' . The company was responding to contemporary market research, which pointed up women's continuing influence over the clothes shopping habits and the taste patterns of their male partners and relatives . "7 The overall retailing formula worked with a contemporary version of gendered complementarity, in which the pleasures of private life were secured via consumption.