Stockholmfashiondays.com - Editors opinion, 11-12-2006

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With the opening of their flagship store in Tokyo in 2008, H&M has finally taken the step into the Japanese market. With its ongoing roll-out in China H&M has clearly positioned themselves on the important Asian market.

Hopes are high that this will make it easier for other Swedish fashion companies to follow. With a giant like H&M in Asia it almost seems like the red carpet will be laid out for other Swedish companies, at least when reading some analyses about it.

Does it really have an impact on other Swedish fashion companies though? Will there be a positive effect? Will it be easier for other Swedish companies to get a share of the enormous Asian retail market? Considering that H&M has never profiled themselves as a Swedish company the direct effects will probably be quite marginal.

IKEA, much appreciated all over the world, has given a lot of credibility to the Swedish interior design and made it a bit easier for companies just by being Swedish. H&M is also much appreciated but few people know what the companies origin is, therefore other companies within the industry will never get the good-will Swedish interior design companies has got from IKEA. In the long run though, it is extremely good for the Swedish fashion industry with having a large company like H&M on the Asian markets. H&M has for a long time worked as a school after school for students from the designer schools. In H&M they have learnt how theory works in practice and, since the Swedish designer schools have a low focus on that, how a business is run.

With H&M’s presence on the Asian markets these people will now also have a chance to learn things about these markets and how business is done there. This knowledge will eventually, like all other these people gain, spread to the rest of the industry. Personally I wish that H&M would do like IKEA and promote themselves as a Swedish company, though maybe in a more subtle way. IKEA has done a lot to profile Swedish design abroad and I believe that with the addition of H&M this profile would be even stronger and more people would recognise, not only our furniture industry, but also our growing fashion industry, making it easier for our great fashion designers.