Founded in 1947 under the name Hennes & Mauritz, Swedish retail-clothing company H&M offers affordable fashion for women, men, teenagers and children.
With more than 2,300 stores around the globe in 41 markets run by 87,000 employees, this mega-giant has outlets in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the US. H&M US opened its doors in 2000 on Fifth Avenue in New York City and has grown steadily ever since, claiming more than $8 million in sales in 2010 generated by 219 stores around the country.
Today, the globally successful company not only offers its own collections, but also collections by an impressive list of couture designers whose garments are usually worn only by the rich and famous.
This past November, H&M welcomed another important fashion brand into their midst – one of the biggest, most iconic and legendary of them all – Versace.
The secret to H&M’s success is bringing quality fashion and quality to the customer at the best price. With that philosophy clearly a motivating force, H&M opened a store in the Gardens Mall in late 2010 that has become one of its most popular retail outlets in Florida.
About 100 in-house designers along with buyers and pattern-makers generally create H&M collections in one central location. The company doesn’t own any factories, but purchases it goods in bulk from about 700 independent suppliers, omitting a middleman and thus keeping the cost down.
A few years ago, H&M decided to try a new approach. The company began collaborating with major designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Jimmy Choo, Comme des Garçons, and more recently, Lanvin, with the proposition of having them offer their designs in a manner that would make them available to fashion-conscious people everywhere, and at better prices that suit today’s economy. Now the H&M collections are also created by these individual big-name design houses, which provide their own designers.
The company’s head of public relations, Jennifer Ward, explained that H&M added Karl Lagerfeld to its roster in 2004 and the partnership worked out extremely well for both the company and the designer.
“So, we approached Donatella Versace two years ago with the opportunity to add the Versace brand in partnership with H&M and she said yes,” said Ward. The collection hit the stores November 19, 2011, “after a lot of hard work and collaboration, and it was a tremendous hit.”
