On Thursday evening, H&M returned to London Fashion Week with a buzzy outdoor runway presentation at the city’s 180 Strand venue – staged in a bespoke, red-luminescent courtyard decked out with large digital screens, and encircled by towering buildings.
The brand’s first catwalk in seven years featured a performance by Brit pop star du jour Lola Young, who also strutted the runway in a black leather bomber jacket, midi skirt and knee high boots. Top models including Alex Consani, Mona Tougaard and Paloma Elsesser walked the show, alongside Lila Moss, Iris Law and Romeo Beckham. The event was directed by Perfect Magazine founder Katie Grand, with looks styled by Jacob K.
The show was a fun, effervescent, high-octane moment at the start of a fashion week when London is trying to reclaim relevance. It was an equally high-stakes moment for H&M, marking the brand’s latest effort to deliver on a vaunted creative turnaround critical to its future growth strategy.
“With this runway we’re bringing the focus back to fashion again,” said Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M’s head of design for womenswear. “In the last couple of years we really put focus on our DNA… because ultimately the product is what we are competing with.”
In a post-pandemic market buttressed by ultra-fast-fashion players like Shein on the one hand, and more premium offerings from established rivals like Zara on the other, H&M has struggled to carve out a clear niche.
In a surprise shakeup, the brand appointed company veteran Daniel Ervér as CEO early last year, handing him the task of rejuvenating the Swedish fast-fashion giant’s sales.
His strategy to boost performance has included prosaic elements, like upgrading the H&M shopping experience and reinforcing the brand’s competitiveness on value with broader product offerings. But a major part of the game plan has simply focused on making H&M cool again and revamping its fashion cred.
The strategy started to roll out in earnest last fall, with a slew of dynamic marketing campaigns and an elevated new collection helmed by global creative director Jörgen Andersson, with Johansson leading womenswear.
But activations, including a Charli XCX concert in London, hot on the heels of Brat-mania last September, and pop-ups in cities like LA and Stockholm, haven’t landed in the same way viral marketing moments from competitors like American Eagle Outfitters and Gap have done in recent months.
Overall, the brand’s sales have remained sluggish in the year since the new creative strategy launched. Revenue fell 5 percent in the second quarter, dragged down in part by currency effects.
H&M is “in an intense learning period of finding the way to create heat around the brand again,” Ervér told analysts on a June call discussing the company’s first-half earnings. “It’s a long-term journey to build that back before we will see substantial financial results.”
While sales remained under pressure, improvements to profitability have helped buoy investor response to the results. Getting the right products to the right markets at the right time will be crucial to the brand’s performance going forward.
“The most important thing is still the quality of products we offer,” said Johansson. “Then you can have as many marketing stories and viral moments as you want.”
In that context, this week’s London Fashion Week runway is an important moment for the brand.
Split over three ‘acts,’ each designed to present a different collection, the runway was punctuated with elevated, oversized blazers and coats, tasselled dresses, boho-chic corporate styles, bold checkered patterns and an abundance of British-punk era inspired leather looks and accessories contrasted with lace pieces. Workers from the show crew and designers from the brand’s atelier also paraded alongside top models and celebrities, according to Johansson.
The mix highlighted the brand’s “everyman” sales pitch, but also met its need to elevate its offerings to keep up with Zara and differentiate the label from the ultra-fast fashion retailers.
“We want to find a way where we can show and talk about inspirational fashion and what inspires us, but also invite everyone to dress their personality the way they want to express themselves,” said Ervér, on the show’s sidelines.
