H&M: The Ambassador of Scandinavian Fashion

For many people worldwide, the fast-fashion giant H&M may be one's first proper introduction to Scandinavian – Swedish specifically – fashion. And this makes sense being that it's the second largest fashion retailer worldwide behind Inditex, Zara's parent company.

This image is sourced from Flickr user Mike Mozart: https://bit.ly/2Dkg7DX

In the world of multi-national businesses that adapt to the consumer preferences. But H&M doesn't change much from country to country – and it doesn't need to – because of its broad appeal comprised of the modern, simple, and minimalistic style which characterizes Scandinavian culture and style.

A Company History

In 1946, Swedish entrepreneur Erling Persson went on a trip to New York City, USA and learned of an emerging way of selling women's fashion that he thought should be had in his home country, Sweden. thus, Hennes was founded in 1947 in Västerås, Sweden, selling women's clothing exclusively (the word hennes is Swedish for "hers"). And in 1968, Persson bought Mauritz Widforss, hunting apparel retailer, which led to him merging the retailer with Hennes and then adding a menswear collection in the store's product range and finally the name change to Hennes & Mauritz.

The very first H&M store, known as "Hennes,"in Västerås, Sweden. Photo sourced from the H&M website: https://bit.ly/2zaDYCY

Since then, Hennes expanded and incurred a name change to what it is now known as: Hennes & Mauritz, or H&M. As it stands, the retailer has 4,800 stores in 71 different markets around the world, with 171,000 total employees. Additionally, the retailer has an online retailing presence in 47 global markets.

What defines the brand?

Simply put: simple and modern fashion. H&M is categorized as fast fashion, a term used to describe "the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers," according to the Merriam-Webster definition. Through fast fashion, fashion retailers produce and sell clothing at a rapid pace, with new items being introduced every day or week. As such, it would not be unusual for a consumer to re-enter an H&M retail location after a month to find a complete inventory turn-over within the store. This is how fast fashion works and validates its namesake.

H&M keeps up with times with regard to trends. As soon as a fashion trend emerges, H&M seeks to commercialize it and mass produce it – all while ensuring affordable prices are maintained for the clothing. Of course, these H&M productions may not contain the bells and whistles of popular fashion items created by high-end fashion designers, but they capture the essence of contemporary fashion pieces by producing affordable, more basic replications.

Conclusion

Though many multi-national companies tend to forego characteristics of their respective countries of origin to better appeal to global markets, H&M – though subtle – maintains traits of Scandinavian fashion. You can find this in the minimalistic design restructures H&M makes to replicate trending fashion items and articles of clothing. And you can find it in the egalitarian prices of clothing which symbolize the traits of Scandinavian socio-economics. Lastly, H&M clothing embodies Scandinavian simplicity by producing clothes that appeals to the lowest common denominator of fashion sensibilities (in a good way!). And H&M's aforementioned traits are exactly why the fashion retailer it excels: You can hardly find anyone alive who wouldn't like at least one clothing item in their clothing inventory.

- Luke Cooper