Hennes & Mauritz: a fantastic Swedish innovation

Hennes & Mauritz: a fantastic Swedish innovation

Hennes & Maurtiz is one of our biggest clothescompanies. They sell clothes, cosmetics and accessories in stores all over Europe.
H&M is from the beginning a Swedish company founded by a salesman from Västerås.
He wanted a store that could sell women´s clothes at low prices. Today H&M sell clothes to men and women of all ages. They follow the always changing fashion and try to offer the best price.
This autum and winter is the season for being adventurous and chic. Colours, patterns, glamour and gold is right this season.

History of H&M.

Hennes & Mauritz AB is from the beginning a Swedish company.
In 1947 a Swedish salesman named Erling Persson went to the United States. He was interested in a store that had high turnover and kept it´s prices low.
When he returned to his Swedish hometown Västerås on 13 September 1947 he decided to open his own store with fashion and low prices. He called it "Hennes" which is the Swedish word for "hers", because he only sold women´s clothes.
The 1950´s and 60´s were good years for "Hennes". Erling Persson wanted to expand his company and opened a store in Stockholm in 1968. He also bought "Mauritz Widforss" a hunting and gun store located in Stockholm. A stock of men´s clothing came with the store and suddenly "Hennes" was a store both for men and women. The company changed it´s name to "Hennes & Mauritz".

Expansion

The years between 1982 to 1998 was a period of rapid expansion for H&M. They opened a great number of stores around Europe. H&M had become an international company.
Now in the year of 2000 "Hennes & Mauritz" is one of our biggest clothes companies, they have 636 stores in 14 different countries. They even have stores in the USA, which they opened in spring 2000.
H&M doesn´t only have clothes in the stores, but also cosmetics and accessories. The philosophy is to offer fashion and quality at the best price.
"Hennes & Mauritz" is a limited company and its stocks have gone very well especially in the last years. A mail-order company is also included in the H&M conbine, it´s named "H&M Rowells AB". The mail-order company is only in Scandinavia and if you want to buy clothes over the Internet you have to live in Sweden, Denmark or Finland.
The H&M company earned 32.5 billion SEK in 1999.

H&M in Örnsköldsvik

Hennes & Mauritz came to Örnsköldsvik in spring 1981.
In the store you can find clothes for men, women, children, cosmetics and accessories. The makes are Logg, Rocky, Impuls and Hennes Collection.

H&M fashion autumn 2000 Ö-vik.

The fashion autumn/winter 2000

After the popularity of sporty, functional clothes and eclectic hippy styles, fashion now this season becomes more spophisticated and grown up.
Materials are more luxurious, with tailored cuts and bold combinations of coulours and patterns.
The coulours are purple, cerise, turquoise and black of course. Checked patterns are back and so is snakeskin patterns.
Clothes in many layers are also very popular this autumn and winter.
There also is a lot of accessories, very much gold, belts and caps in many different way.
Autumn/Winter 2000 is the season to be adventurous and chic.

Is there a difference between Swedish H&M-fashion and the rest of Europe?

"Hennes & Mauritz" has 70 designers who create the differrent collections.
They follow the always changing fashion and create clothes that follow the fashion and still don’t make you broke. H&M is a company that gives you the possiblity to buy the "right" fashion but at a lower price than you get in another store.
The company can offer the best price and to ensure that there are special "rules":
There are few middlemen, products are bought by large volumes, and there is an extensive knowledge of the clothing industry. The right goods is bought from the right market.
"H&M" has stores all over Europe but sell the same clothes in all stores.
The fashion is the same in all countries but it isn´t changing with the same speed in all countries. The stores in big cities and big countries are often bigger than stores in small cities.
They don’t sell as much clothes as the bigger stores so they don’t have large stocks.
Since it´s like that you can belive that the small cities and small countries get the "right" fashion later than big countries. But it´s because they don’t have for example the whole spring collection in the stores. They only get a part of it.
So there is no difference between Swedish H&M –fashion and the rest of Europe. The fashion is the same everywhere but it depends on what your store has in stock. It´s the same colours, accessories and patterns where ever you go.