Reportedly, the Swedish fast-fashion retailer Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) is about to launch an India specific festive collection across its stores this year marking the retailer’s maiden attempt to localise its offerings for the Indian market where it has scaled to 41 stores.
Reportedly, the Swedish fast-fashion retailer Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) is about to launch an India specific festive collection across its stores this year marking the retailer’s maiden attempt to localise its offerings for the Indian market where it has scaled to 41 stores.
Later this week, shoppers at H&M stores and online, will be able to access its festive collection — a range of H&M’s signature western wear — designed by the retailer’s global team with help from the brand’s local team here. The collection, put together, after local market research, is a combination of locally-inspired paisley prints, along with bright sequined jackets for women, and shirts for men.
“We need a certain size and scale and we need to the right time to do such a local launch,” JanneEinola, H&M India’s country manager told Mint in an interview. “We need to understand the demand, we need to understand what customers are looking for.
We didn’t want to bring an ethnic collection—which is traditional Indian wear because this is not what we do. We are good in western clothes, that’s why we believe it is nice to offer a different kind of collection to the modern Indian shoppers,” he said.
The launch will be supported by a digital marketing campaign. H&M designs such country-specific collection in other markets as well; for instance, in China, it sells a new collection during the country’s annual Chinese New Year festivities.
H&M’s move to localize its offerings for an India specific occasion seems to be a competitive action as it comes directly after Japanese retailer UNIQLO made its India debut last week and launched a “kurta collection” for shoppers in collaboration with local designer Rina Singh.
