Can H&M lure middle-aged women from M&S?
It’s the store loved by teens, but its new line with SamCam’s favourite designer is selling like hot cakes to older women. So what does our 65-year-old fashionista think of it?
SLEEVES, skirts below the knee and pretty piecrust collars. All this modesty and elegance in cheap and cheerful teenybopper store H&M. Who would have thought!
I was surprised to find myself neck-high and ankle- skimming deep in the latest H&M/couture designer collaboration. A rather sophisticated collection of floaty floral print dresses and structured, intricately embroidered suits, courtesy of Canadian designer Erdem, a favourite of British and North American power dressers from the Duchess of Cambridge to Michelle Obama.
As a woman of 65, H&M is not the kind of shop I’d normally be seen in — except if I was looking for the occasional serviceable £25 jumper — but today is different.
With these elegant separates and dresses, there can be little doubt that H&M is attempting to take on Marks & Spencer and Next for the hearts and minds of middle- aged women with disposable income.
And it could very well be that they succeed. Female shoppers of all ages have been queuing all day for a sniff of the new range and queues outside some London stores stretched around the block.
Online, the collection — where a typical dress costs around £99 (about a tenth of Erdem’s usual price) — sold out in a matter of hours. Typically, pieces were selling for three times the price on eBay almost immediately. There was even security patrolling the excitable crowds outside the Kensington High Street branch.
That’s some hype. But was it worth it? On the whole, I would say . . . yes.
The quality of the fabric and stitching was definitely a step-up from H&M’s usual standard, although some of the items were a little fussy, frilly and froufrou for my taste.
This is the latest in a long line of collaborations between the High Street store and high-end design houses. There have already been sell- out collections from Kenzo, Balmain, Versace, Alexander Wang, Marni, Karl Lagerfeld and Lanvin.
Erdem Moralioglu, meanwhile, is very much the designer du jour and even gets the seal of approval from royal-in-waiting fashionista Meghan Markle. Samantha Cameron, Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow are also fans of the brand.
ERDEM’S gorgeously floaty and flattering look has certainly been adopted by the grown-up woman wanting to make a fashion statement — without flaunting her sexuality. But at an average of £1,000 for a dress, it hasn’t been affordable for ordinary women — until now. So does it work for an older woman who has perhaps lost her body confidence?
To me, it is manna from heaven. As your skin tone fades and your glow subsides, stark monochromes and harsh shades are not flattering to the more mature lady — but Erdem’s vibrant coloured prints, tailored cuts, long sleeves and hems are face and figure-enhancing.
I couldn’t be more pleased that in 2017, modesty is the new sex appeal. I was fascinated to discover that the inspiration for Erdem’s designs is his late English mother.
‘It’s going to sound so Oedipal, but my mum was so well-dressed and lovely,’ he said, explaining that the woman he designs for ‘does what she wants and is strong’. Such a refreshing thing to say when so many male designers think of a woman as merely something to hang their clothes on. Here at last is a man designing for real women. Women like his mother.
So will he succeed in tempting more affluent, mature women into a store which is predominantly full of well- priced, average quality clothes for millennials rather than the middle-aged?
To judge by the number of women clawing at blouses that would cost up to £780 if they bought from the couture collection, I think he probably will.