H&M heads back to basics. Fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) is trying on a new concept for size.
The group has just opened the first shop in its new COS - collection of style - chain on London's Regent Street, which is currently being given an upmarket facelift by Crown Estates. Gone are the jumbled rails, crammed with colourful trendy items familiar to teenagers and trend watchers alike who regularly thumb through the clothes at its H&M shops. In its place is a more sedate offering - all modernist wood and metals designed by William Russell, whose clients include fashion designer Alexander McQueen - filled with neutral tones and styles.
New look COS aims to go back to basics, creating a classic wardrobe for the mid-market consumer who wants "designer quality at High Street prices". Cos and & Other Stories Are Picking Up the Pace on Store Expansion. If you are a fan of Cos and & Other Stories, otherwise known as H&M's chicer offshoots, we have good news: You'll be seeing more of them in the near future.
According to the company's first quarter financial report, the two will be expanding in 2015 more than they did in 2014 — meaning more than 26 openings for Cos and 12 for & Other Stories — and primarily in existing markets, though Cos does plan to open the doors of its first locations in Luxembourg and Prague by fall. Given how popular the brands' first New York shops have proven to be since they opened for business last fall, we've got our fingers crossed for further U.S. openings. American shoppers can also bank on getting a crapload more H&M stores in the near future. The fast fashion giant is opening another 400 locations in 2015, adding to the fast fashion giant's already massive global network of nearly 3,300 locations.
Scandimania: why we fall for Swedish style. For decades, an enormous yellow box packed with £20 TV tables and clutter-beating shelving units has been considered Sweden's greatest retail export.
Until now, at least. Not, I hasten to add, that our collective hunger for Ikea's budget-priced furniture design has diminished - I for one continue to swear by my PAX wardrobe - but because as a capital of design lovers we've fallen head over heels for another aspect of Swedish culture: its fashion. Take a trip to Stockholm and you'll immediately understand its appeal. While the streets of London offer a dynamic blend of street style, in Sweden an understated, utilitarian approach has long dominated. It is this effortless stance on elegance that London's style-savvy are now besotted with. COS: the rise and rise of Scandinavian fashion house. In a little under eight years, COS has become one of the fastest-growing fashion brands on the high street.
Last week, H&M Group, which owns COS, announced strong first-quarter results, and further expansion looks on the cards for the label. COS opened its first store on London's Regent Street in 2007; since then, the brand has opened more than 120 around the world, including three in Hong Kong. It debuted in New York stores last autumn, and plans on opening in Luxembourg and Prague by autumn. Cos opens new store in London’s Spitalfields. Our Brand. At COS we offer our customers reinvented classics that can be carried across the seasons.
The collections reflect our core values of timeless, modern, tactile and functional design. Timeless – By revisiting classic pieces, our collection carries a selection of updated and timeless garments for everyday wear. Our Customer. Our Values. Company Ethics. We purchase our products from around 60 suppliers, which are located in Europe and Asia.
Supplier Requirements We want our products to be manufactured under good working conditions. This is why we have a code of conduct. Our code is based on ILO's core conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and includes the following supplier requirements: Fashion on the British high street: the winners and losers. Zara: going up At the top of the game when it comes to fast fashion, Inditex – the group that owns Zara – is just as swift with its thinking.
Its expansion into international markets is serious, with more than a third of its sales this year coming from China and the US, up 29% from a year earlier. Online now accounts for an increasing amount of sales, with 1.3 million people visiting the site every day. Cos opens 100th store as owner H&M's profits surge. Annual Report 2014_en. Just be COS. Being a customer at COS is a lot like being a member of a club: its regular visitors certainly treat the Swedish-owned London-based chain with the same loyalty they would an old friend.
As a group of slightly smug shoppers, we feel pity for those who haven’t fallen privy to COS’s charms and are enraged on its behalf when anyone fails to “get” the brand’s aesthetic. But is our smugness wrongly placed? And are the clothes available at COS — or at Collection of Style, to use its full, slightly awkward name — really that far removed from those available elsewhere on the high-street? Karin Gustafsson, the chain’s head of womenswear, certainly thinks so: “I don’t buy from anyone else,” she says. Neither, it would seem, does a considerable proportion of London’s working population, who consider the store’s minimally cut dresses and classic shirts the foundation of their nine-to-five wardrobes. Baluba – Creative Consultancy – London. COS (Collection of Style) launched in 2007 with a flagship store on London’s Regent Street, offering near ready-to-wear style and quality at an affordable price point.
Soon emerging as the credible antidote to the “fast fashion” culture of the high street, COS has bucked the recession trend for retail decline and continues to expand to include standalone stores and concessions worldwide. Eschewing traditional advertising, COS cleverly uses its packaging, retail spaces, lifestyle ideals and collaborations as promotional tools. Stores are usually found on renowned shopping streets, in historic buildings whose individual features are treated sympathetically, inside and out. H&M's Cos brand quickens global expansion. Dive Brief: Stockholm-based H&M Group is expanding its Cos (“Collection of Style) line with 27 new stores globally, including in the U.S. in Boston, New York, Costa Mesa, CA, and Houston, TX.
The brand has a store in Los Angeles and another in New York. H&M's Collection Of Style (COS) To Enter Mainland China This Fall. H&M-owned retail brand COS comes to Canada. Toronto and Montreal ideal launch cities due to their 'strong international standing' COS operates under the same banner as H&M, but the newest player in Canada’s retail market sees a clear distinction between its offerings and the fast-fashion sold by the Swedish chain. “We’re very proud to be part of the H&M Group, of course…. But really, if you walked into a COS store, it’s very much an individual COS boutique,” said Atul Pathak, head of communications for COS, short for Collection of Style.
COS recently launched its inaugural Canadian location in Toronto with a three-floor boutique and a Montreal store is slated to open Oct. 9. COS, which debuted in 2007, currently has 131 stores, a small fraction of the approximately 3,700 H&M locations worldwide including 75 in Canada. The cult of Cos: we discuss what men really want with the man behind the bran... Much like Five Points Pale ale and those juicy green gherkins that have come to signify a perfectly cooked burger, Cos has become a daily occurrence for sartorially astute city dwellers. A failsafe, both for men who prefer not to spend big on clothing and those who regularly splash the cash, the Swedish chain is a one-stop shop for the discerning twentysomething shopping for an interview outfit just as it is the go-to brand for the 44-year-old menswear aficionado looking for a white shirt to compliment his newly purchased piece of Dries Van Noten.
“Cos is a stepping stone between good design and the high-street,” agrees Martin Andersson, head of menswear, when we meet in the brand’s W1 head office. “There was a gap in the market before we came along. Quiet High-Street Rebel Cos Accelerates Global Expansion. LONDON, United Kingdom — H&M on London’s Oxford Street is on sale. A red haze of crimson £2, £3, £4 and £5 tickets has descended over the crop tops and t-shirts bearing slogans like “School Sucks” and “Don’t Kill My Vibe.” A song by Swedish dance duo Axwell λ Ingrosso plays loudly and a blinding neon white light tells customers to PARTY! "Design and architecture has been a key influence" for COS. Interview: fashion brand COS is heavily influenced by architecture and design, says managing director Marie Honda, who tells Dezeen how the company built a global business with 104 stores in 25 countries without using conventional advertising or catwalk shows (+ slideshow).
Instead, COS uses collaborations with designers including Nendo and Numen/For Use to target customers who work in the creative industries. "You can see from our trend boards that our inspiration from the beginning has been very, very strong from the design world, architecture, graphics, etc," Honda told Dezeen. "It has been a key influence. " S: Thoroughly modern minimalism. The best indication of a brand's successful infiltration is when you can't imagine the high-street landscape without it, or remember where you used to buy anything before it existed. And five years after first arriving in the UK, Swedish label Cos is becoming as much part of the fabric of our town centres as its stablemate, H&M.
Launched with a catwalk show at the Royal Academy in 2007, and operating out of a coolly designed flagship store which occupies the ground floor of the old Dickins and Jones building on Regent Street in 2007, Cos (it stands for Collection of Style) has since become a wardrobe saviour; a go-to for simple and anonymous clothing, stylish basics and zeitgeist-y geometric and minimal pieces that owe their success as much to their casual complexity as they do to their reasonable, mid-market prices.