Versace, Balmain, Roberto Cavalli—those are all globally recognized names, but Viktor & Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, and Erdem are less so. How does H&M choose which designers to work with? Johansson explained that the team has a wishlist. “You have to have the feeling for when something is kind of on the rise, when we think our customers are ready for it, and to really capture the zeitgeist,” she said. Feedback from colleagues, many of whom are the same age as the target audience, is factored in as well. “I think it’s really nice to be able to present designers and brands to the younger generation who might not know about these brands or know the fashion history,” said Johansson. “I think it also makes fashion less shallow in that sense; it actually gives context to fashion, you can see how something started and the evolution and the development of things. I think that is super interesting, and we can show that with these collaborations.”
In some cases, as with Maison Martin Margiela, Versace, and Toga, to name some examples, the designer collaboration collections are reissues or reinterpretations of a designer or a house’s archives. Sweden has given the world H&M and Spotify, among other things, and while The New York Times wrote in 2005 that H&M was “beginning to resemble the retail version of designer Cliffs Notes,” a better metaphor would be a best-of playlist. And that’s how some designers are thinking of these projects. Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing said in an interview that “the allover beaded dress comes from my very first Balmain collection, so it’s like I’m literally giving to H&M the beginning of my story.” He is of a generation that grew up with the designer collaborations, as is Simone Rocha, H&M’s 2021 year collaborator, who keeps the Lanvin for H&M pieces she bought back in the day in her parent’s homes.
When it comes to the evolution of the designer collaboration program itself, Johansson notes that the collections have become more decorative over time. “We know that glamour sells really well,” she said when interviewed about the Giambattista Valli project. Things are different behind the scenes, too. How much a designer chooses to be involved or not is down to the individual, but Johansson has observed that the era of the untouchable icon has shifted toward an approach that is more collective; “it’s more about teamwork.. I think there has been a change between generations,” she said. “[With] the old generation it was just one, the big name, and he or she had a team around him or her. The young one can also be iconic, but it’s more generous. Times have changed, you’re not that sole person any longer, you have to work together with others, and then you have to respect them…. [There’s] much more give and take, and everyone has a say. And to be honest, that is very much how we work at H&M.”