Alexander Wang x H&M 2014
In the summer of 2014, fast fashion
megastore H&M announced plans to collaborate with the hottest kid of New
York---Alexander Wang (a.k.a王大仁)—and launch the exclusively seasonal line
in November 2014. Already known the low prices, such as H&M offers a 9,99
EUR women’s sports tank (without support), with the additional label and AW fonts
(abbreviation for Alexander Wang) and the numbers go up to 29,99 EUR (without
support). H&M has been accused for exploiting overseas workers’ benefits
and wages, and the serious collaborations with high fashion designers (such as 2012
Masion Martin Margiela x H&M and 2013 Isabel Marant x H&M) may lead to the
further issues on sweatshop labour and environmental disaster.
At the beginning of September, 2014, H&M has already displayed 7_storey high advertisement on the wall of Forum (one of the major shopping malls in Helsinki Centre); in the middle week of October, 2014, a 15-second TV commercial ‘Alexander Wang x H&M’ broadcast every day, showcasing top models such as Joan Smalls or Anna Ewes. Imaging how much advertising campaign H&M spends on this fast, chic and quick line, only for the making of hot money.
On November 6 th, 2014, -1’c in Helsinki, fast
fashion fashionista line up outside of H&M along Aleksanterinkatu (major
shopping street in Helsinki), after the door opens at 08:00AM, the cluttered
store is packed with wowing, yaying and cashier clicking. I like Alexander
Wang’s clean and sleek cutting design, no doubt, and I have 0 sports tank for
my yoga practice, so I take over 40 minutes to select a grey/black one with AW
symbols, Made in Italy (which is good), 68% Polypropylene, 24% polyamide and 8%
elastane (which is not meet up my expectation, since I wish there shall be at
least 25% of cotton), 29,99 EUR. I also choose sports towel set (a 140cm x 70
cm and a 30cm x 50cm, plus a backpack), Made in Turkey, 100% cotton (which is
nice), 29,99 EUR. Finally I spot a well-designed AW-font carved whistle wrapped
inside a delicate giftbox, 100% plastic, Made in China, 9,99 EUR. At first I
thought this price is not that bad for a cute item, unfortunately I found out
that the whistle is quite hard to blow any sound.
H&M on season-limited campaign always does a good trick, not just for the sake of the name, but also on the timing. While loads of customers would like to wake up before office hour to line up outside of the store, it proves the facts that, not just the high popularity of the designer, but also the great success of the marketing strategy, which, also slyly grasps humans’ psychological weakness: It’s a shame not gaining any worms back when being an early bird. For the sales, H&M does really well. But for the sense of clothing value, year after year H&M drags down how we think about clothes. According to Dana Thomas, author of ‘Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster’, points out that the collaboration line are designed to do almost one thing—push shoppers into a purchasing frenzy while they only know they’re owning some items with the designer’s name labels on, with expectation on ‘clothing cost virtually none.’
I haven’t done any laundry on my Alexander Wang x HM sports tank and towels yet. Once I do, I definitely report the result on Art Accede.
Works Cited & Photography:
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