H&M Is Launching a New Retail Brand, Arket
By Lynsey Eidell. Photos: Getty Images.
There are a hundred reasons to love H&M—its up-to-the-second designs, its eco-conscious collections, its always-affordable price points—so it's exciting every time the retail giant announces a new offshoot because they're usually pretty fantastic. Next up: Arket, a new retail concept that's looking to bring hygge, the Scandinavian obsession with all things cozy, directly to your shopping experience.
Arket will be a "modern-day market that will offer essential products for men, women, children, and home," according to Business of Fashion. (We're picturing a Scandinavian Anthropologie.) The stores will sell both Arket's products as well as those from other non-H&M brands, with a focus on materials and price points starting slightly higher than those of a typical H&M purchase. (Men's shirts, for example, start at around $42 and can go up to $123.) To help create a more positive experience for shoppers, some of its stores will also have cafés featuring healthy Nordic cuisine.
"We really believe it's relevant to a modern customer to bring different brands together—under one roof, under one channel—and to make that choice for them and also make it more convenient," Ulrika Bernhardtz, Arket's creative director, told Business of Fashion. "The brand DNA is timeless, crisp, quality, and warmth. Timeless is style beyond trend. And crisp is the counterpart to that: to be always relevant, modern, and fresh. Quality is not only the feel of garments; it's also how they are produced. Warmth is about being genuine and personal."
Although all that sounds delightful, here's the one bit of bad news: You'll probably have to fly to Europe to visit an Arket (which means "sheet of paper" in Swedish) location, for now anyway. The first retail store will open in London later this year, and additional outposts in Brussels, Copenhagen, and Munich.
Still, other brands in H&M's portfolio, like COS and & Other Stories, only existed in Europe until recently so here's hoping Arket hits the U.S. soon.
This story originally appeared on Glamour.
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