H&M has a vision for the store of the future, and it's like nothing else we've seen from the brand
- H&M has a concept store in Sweden that offers a curated selection of clothing and accessories.
- This store is the antithesis of H&M's standard locations. It speaks to the direction in which brick-and-mortar shopping is headed, casting doubt on whether H&M in its original form is still viable in the current market.
- We took a look around the store via Instagram.
H&M's vision for the store of the future is minimalist, curated, and pricey - everything that the original H&M is not.
Its new concept store, which was unveiled in November 2017 in one of its existing locations in Sweden, is the antithesis of a typical H&M store. Shoppers come in to shop its limited collection of clothing, have a coffee in the store, or even take a yoga class.
While this is currently the only H&M store of its kind, it's telling of where the company believes retail is headed. It's a very different direction from what we see in the rest of its often chaotic and cluttered fleet of stores.
Once the king of fast fashion, H&M has stumbled in recent years and lost out to more nimble online players such as ASOS and Boohoo, which have cut down supply-chain times and swooped in to poach customers. As a result, sales growth at H&M has slowed. It has also battled with a mountain of unsold inventory and seen its stock price slump.
One of H&M's key areas of success has been its sister brands, specifically Cos, which is the second-largest brand in the company's portfolio and is focused on better-quality but higher-cost clothing.
The overlap between Cos and its concept store is far greater than at its own H&M brand, signifying that Cos may have become the model for H&M stores of the future.
Take a look around the concept store below: