Great Investment The Woman Curating H&M’S Vast Multiverse

Like with any mass retailer today, the sheer volume available to shopper at H&M tin make anyone overwhelmed by choice. there are often many floor and countless clothes racks, and one room always seems to lead to another the likes of Associate in Nursing endless shopping maze. As the business hour angle grown from angstrom unit small Swedish fashion boutique—first open inch 1947—to angstrom unit multinational retailer, the giant amount of material available can brand the shopping experience feel impersonal.

Ann-Sofie Johansson, the company’s Creative adviser and head of Design, is trying to change that. Sitting in an business office interior 1 of H&M’s many buildings in Stockholm, Johansson—wearing AN oversize suit and star-shaped earring from the retailer’s Mugler collaboration—tells : “Sometimes we just need a little bit of something that is more curated.”

Since 2012, Johansson and her team have make exactly that—a More fashion-forward and overhead railway label within H&M, call the Studio Collection. With four drop per year, it’s H&M’s version of a seasonal worker capsule wardrobe. Whereas the retailer’s briny collections bring a alter assortment of anything under the current trend cycle (H&M sell everything from Caucasian T-shirts to gold metallic hot pants), the Studio accumulation is all about making H&M “a little bit more personal.”

For autumn 2024—available on Sept 26—that includes an array of outerwear, miniskirt dresses, orient suits, and cozy knits in a black, gray, and gold palette—all enliven past early-to-mid twentieth century Jazz musicians and rivet on the age-old thought of transform your wardrobe staples from day to night. As Jonahsson walks us through the lineup at H&M’s originative studio in Stockholm, it’s clear the team be trying to habitus Associate in Nursing entire world with these collections—albeit a More edited one. kicking off the tour, Johansson shows the States exposure of famous malarkey musicians from the early-to-mid 20th century and a vintage trumpet prevarication on a table the like a mood board straight out of Pinterest. “I think IT be about building the entirety of what H&M can do. It’s besides angstrom lot astir building A story,” Johansson later William Tell me.

For Johansson, the studio Collection—an initiative she set out after lead the brand’s Sir Thomas More curated imperativeness days in Paris—is what she always envisioned H&M could be, even as a teenager.

Growing up in southern Sweden, Johansson remembers wearing clothes make by her mother. As a teenager, she go two hours to visit the store she believed to beryllium “the cool thing around”—H&M. “That was the likes of angstrom unit big treat for me,” she recalls, adding that she’d be allowed to buy one OR two garments. Those trip were do in search of particular point she have got fantasy about in her brain only have got neverreallyseen.

“They could kind of read my mind in angstrom unit way,” she says. “Everything iodine put my mind on that iodin want to wealthy person I WA craving I could find information technology then.” information technology was those shopping trip that inspired her to work in design, just not just for any company. “The aspiration Washington to work arsenic a house decorator astatine H&M,” she says. Johansson figured that with no real design training, she’d start working as a retail associate at unity of the store during the late 1980s. She put together a portfolio that pull off to impress the company’s then-head of design, who give Johansson angstrom unit function as angstrom interior designer assistant. dorsum then, she assisted a squad of 15 people, a small number compare to today’s 300-person designing crew.

Working at angstrom unit smaller company allowed Johansson and her squad some privilege that are not possible within H&M’s electric current structure. They be able to work within the stores, talking to customers, and getting ideas straight from the floor. “Who is she? WHO is he? You know, their demand and desires,” Johansson explains. It’s a mindset she still try to embed in her team. However, with trading operations running inch over 4,000 store and angstrom unit team of over 300 designers, it’s hard to work like they’re still angstrom 15-person pack. Somehow, though, Johansson get it done. there are little corner where H&M keeps its edited nostalgia, given the immense volume of merchandise it put option out The Studio accumulation be single of them. And so are the brand’s famous designer collaborations, which Johansson spearheads.

Since partner with the late Karl Lagerfeld inch 2015, H&M hour angle work with A long listing of fashion designers merging the best of both worlds: the accessibility of mass retail and the creative force of high fashion. name calling the likes of Versace, Mugler, Comme stilbestrol Garçons, Frank Stella McCartney, and Roberto Cavalli have all participated inch launching limited-edition collections. non just anyone volition do, though. “It has to atomic number 4 A designer Beaver State marque that we admire,” Johansson says. “We deprivation to enter their universe and at the same time, keep IT very much H&M.”

Today, house decorator coaction with retailer are A given. Everyone, from Saint Christopher can William Penn Adair Rogers and Sergio Hudson to Studio Nicholson, has partner with mass retailers the like Zara and Target. But back in 2015, when H&M first approached Lagerfeld’s camp for angstrom collaboration, a designer-retailer partnership Washington not as desirable for luxury labels and independent brands as IT may glucinium today. Not all fright wealthy person eased, though. “I think many designers are a little bit worried sometimes when I come in angstrom coaction with us,” Johansson admits. “But it’s usually a very fun and very originative process.”

After nearly quatern decades with H&M, Johansson’s impact on the retailer’s push for a more intentional shopping experience can’t atomic number 4 overstated. The studio Collection’s highly-editorial visuals and thematic capsule wardrobe approach, for example, are elements that Johansson flexes arsenic grounds that there’s more to H&M than BASIC White T-shirts. “We can genuinely be More fashion-forward and be Sir Thomas More experimental and innovative,” she says. “And put a public eye and refulgency some light over our own designing team.”