H&M is a staple for any student’s wardrobe. In fact I challenge anyone to find a student who doesn’t own a piece of H&M in some form or another, whether it be knickers or knitwear.
The Swedish brand began in 1947, named Hennes – Swedish for hers. It sold just women’s clothing and was owned by Erling Persson who later acquired the hunting store, Mauritz Widforss, prompting the expansion into Menswear and thus Hennes and Mauritz was born, shortened to H&M.
The ready-to-wear and “fast fashion” giant experienced a major expansion from 1964 onwards and after conquering Europe opened its first store in New York in March 2000.
The glamorous Champs Elysées has finally welcomed H&M into its prestigious league of stores. October 6th saw the opening of the much anticipated new shop designed by Jean Nouvel. Kylie, Jimmy Choo, Karl Lagerfield, Roberto Cavalli and Sonia Rykiel are some of the names that H&M have collaborated with and with a little black book filled with names like that you can see why the brand just keeps getting better. The latest, as you will all know, was the featured Lanvin collection by Alber Elbaz.
I think the biggest question is after so much anticipation, what do you think of it? The never-ending ruffles and voluminous shapes are indeed very eye-catching but are they a little too Lady Gaga in places? For me H&M has such great success and is the equivalent of pasta for the student’s wardrobe because it’s accessible to everyone, cheap and obviously fashionable.
I didn’t feel like the Lanvin collection screamed “buy me I’m beautiful”or “I’m good value” like H&M normally does. Of course it is a little piece of Lanvin luxury at a tiny fraction of the cost but I didn’t fancy spending my precious overdraft on anything in the collection.
I have to admit I liked the mustard yellow asymmetric dress but other than that nothing really jumped out as being a great piece of clothing. For most of us students who don’t get to walk down a red carpet the dresses seem a little bit “out there” and I, for one, would feel like I stuck out like a sore thumb with such huge statement ruffles.
The advert that goes along with it doesn’t help either, suggesting you are pretty much certainly going to be wearing the same dress as someone else in the next few months to come, before Lanvin fever dies down.
Is this the problem with making designer wear so accessible to the mass market? That any statement piece suddenly becomes less of a statement? I will stop with the rather cynical rhetorical questions but would love to see if anyone agrees or disagrees. Love Lanvin?
3 thoughts on “A Bit of H&M; But Do We Love Lanvin Too?”