H&M is launching a new brand

A few days ago H&M’s CEO Karl-Johan Persson announced to Bloomberg something very exciting. The Sacandinavian fast fashion giant is in fact working on a new brand, which is going to be – according to the CEO – “completely different from H&M” and from the other brands owned by the group.

H&M’s reign is already very wide. Creating a range of different styles at different prices, which are always highly competitive, H&M has always been able to offer great variety to its customers, reaching different audiences.

COS is the minimalistic and most expensive of H&M Group’s brands and it has a pretty big fame between editors and people working within the fashion industry; Cheap Monday speaks for the youngers representing the quintessential denim brand among teenagers of every country; & Other Stories, born in 2013 as a beauty brand, in just a couple of years has not only become a successful brand also for clothes, shoes and accessories, but has also expanded its stores in ten different countries.

Then there are the less-known Monki and Weekday, for which Nils Vinge, who takes care of H&M’s investor relations, said the retailer has plans of expansion. “It’s primarily COS, & Other Stories this year,” he said. “But we’re also looking to speed up Monki and Weekday.”

So, in such a variated range of styles H&M Group already offer, which part will the upcoming brand play? Unfortunately not much has been said; everything is still wrapped into mystery. It could have something to do with the new genderless era, experimenting with the approach of new technologies in fashion or not being a fashion brand at all but a homeware label.

The only certainty we have at the moment is that the launch is planned for 2017 and things are already moving within H&M. Vinge said, in fact, that there’s a department that is “looking into new things all the time” and that there are “some concrete things” under consideration.

 Francesca Milano