athens understated blog

H&M has chosen Jimmy Choo, the British shoemaker favoured by celebrities, as the latest luxury brand to design a cheap chic collection for its budget clothing chain.

The Swedish-based H&M, which has been gradually moving its shops upmarket, said its Jimmy Choo range of shoes, bags and accessories would be sold in 200 of its 1,800 stores worldwide from mid-November.

In 2004, H&M started teaming up with high-fashion designers such as Stella McCartney and Roberto Cavalli in an effort to distance itself from the growing number of budget clothing retailers on the high street.

Two years later, it launched its more upmarket COS brand across Europe, helping to boost sales by 18 per cent to SKr23.3bn ($2.9bn) in the last quarter to March.

H&M said: “We make affordable high-fashion. To collaborate with Jimmy Choo, which is known for luxury and glamour, is a fun way to prove that.”

While Jimmy Choo shoes normally retail in the UK for about £400 (€469), H&M said its specially-designed footwear range would cost between €40 and €200.

The luxury brand, which is majority owned by TowerBrook Capital Partners, the private equity group, was set up in 1996 by Jimmy Choo, a shoemaker from London’s East End, and Tamara Mellon, a former editor at Vogue magazine.

article taken on FT

Japanese customers were lucky enough to be the first worldwild to be able to buy the collaboration line Comme des Garçons for H&M . Some pieces will be at a lower-price level and some will be a little more expensive. In terms of quality, wool and cotton will be central in the collection.

There is a contradiction between H&M and Comme des Garçons: H&M is very mass market, whereas Comme des Garçons is very sophisticated.

In this business model, H&M takes the commercial risk, production and handling and Rei Kawakubo is responsible for the design. Theoretically, a third brand will be created, with a life cycle of just one week! The collection will also be available at 10 Corso Como in Milan and Seoul. In the past, H&M have collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld, Stella Mc Cartney, Roberto Cavalli and Victor &Rolf.