Lanvin rockets H&M sales

“The collection has been very successful in all countries,” said Jenni Tapper-Hoel, a spokeswoman for the Stockholm-based company. Customer reaction has been “extraordinary” in China, Canada, the U.K., Italy and Russia, and H&M

has sold out a number of items in the collection, she said to Bloomberg.

  Europe’s second-largest clothing retailer, said a temporary collection from French designer Lanvin introduced this week has posted strong sales in countries including China and Russia. Thus, may accelerate H&M’s sales growth this month for the first November since 2007 as shoppers regain the confidence to splash out on $249 evening dresses and $299 tuxedos by Lanvin, estimates Luca Sola, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Citing Bloomberg data, revenue growth slowed in the last two Novembers as shoppers concerned with the credit crunch were less enthusiastic about H&M lines of Jimmy Choo sandals and Comme Des Garcons dresses.

Since shoppers mobbed H&M stores in November 2004 to grab the Chanel designer’s clothing at a fraction of the usual cost, the retailer has failed to recreate the same effect on revenue growth with subsequent collections. The Stockholm-based retailer’s latest attempt is a line by Paris fashion house Lanvin, which went on sale Nov. 23 worldwide. “Sequels always draw less attention,” recognized to Bloomberg Armando Branchini, a consultant at Intercorporate in Milan, of the collections after Lagerfeld, which lifted monthly revenue by 24 percent. That said, “The Lanvin designers are very well known in the fashion world and these collections always draw a lot of attention and H&M benefits.”

Continuing with the H&M venture to launch at least once per year a joint capsule collection with a prestige designer, the collection by Stella McCartney, which was sold at fewer shops than the Lagerfeld one, helped boost revenue by 11 percent in November 2005. The range included dresses for $99.90. Her clothes sold for more than $1,000 at the time.

Last November, when the Jimmy Choo collection was introduced, H&M reported 1 percent total sales growth, the slowest since it introduced guest ranges. The year earlier, in the month of the Comme Des Garcons collection, sales rose 7 percent, down from a 14 percent gain in the prior period when H&M sold a line by Cavalli.

As stated by the recently released study The Value Of The UK Fashion Industry (conducted by the British Fashion Council), one of the most effective models for designer fashion businesses is to link the creative skills of the designers with a business partner. The document points how this kind of partnership is at the heart of the world’s most successful designer business brands (i.e. Gucci, LVMH, Burberry), where a strong business partner complements the creativity of the designer.

This not only allows the businesses to operate successfully from a financial perspective, it alsoallows the designer to maximise his or her creative input as business challenges (outside their skillset) are removed from their action list.

This needs assistance not only for recent graduates to consider this partner- torical success so that it maintains its pre-eminence as a cutting edge and internationally influential ship opportunity as a career option, but also for those well established designers that might dare to reach a different target thanks to joint capsule collections with high-street retailers such as H&M, Gap or Uniqlo.