H&M Highs and Lows and why it’s my favourite brand
by Libby Brachaniec
It is undeniable that this fast fashion brand has made big headlines within the past few years. From diversifying their models to greenwashing their advertisements, we will dig through to find their all-time biggest highs and lows of the business and what predicts their future within the fashion industry.
Starting out on a high the business has come forward and diversified their models for their online website and television advertisements. They state that they are an inclusive business and to them that means diversity in action (M&M group 2022) R1. This is a massive step forward within the fashion industry to show body representation and colour diversity. Compared to other brands such as Victoria’s secret which has undergone a high volume of backlash due to their insignificant diversity within the brand. Many magazines company’s and influencers have recently talked about the downhill ride of the company following their iconic runway show to be cancelled due to them having less diversity and for the runway show to therefore be less popular.
(DSCENE, 2022) R6.
H&M however have gone the different direction with many companies’ praising the brand for being so upcoming with diversity and inclusion. However, this is not how the bran has always been. Back in 2018 the brand had a downfall due to a “Black child wearing a sweatshirt that read “coolest monkey in the jungle.” (Forbes, 2020) R2. This led to many people stopping interest in the brand and halting purchases. Since then, they have had a rebrand had have chosen inclusivity overall. This has not only given people of minorities more of a voice but allows them to be seen and admired causing the diversity issue within the fashion industry to close slightly. It also gives the brand a new purpose to show this new diversification and to also represent so many different people. This could be the new purpose of the brand which we will find out for the coming years if the change has stayed.
Although the brand has diversified itself there have been new issues of greenwashing in recent years. The brand has recently brought out a collection called the conscious collection. However, there has recently been a lawsuit in place due to the mark up of this collection and statements of the conscious collection being false. Stating that this collection uses less water to produce the clothing items when it uses more. This greenwashing used by the company has given them a bad reputation and although it is being investigated the false advertisements will stay within the consumers’ minds next time, they show which may lead them to stop further purchases. This can highly impact the profitability of the company.
The profits made by the company is high, with them earning 1.7 billion dollars in 2021 (Statista, 2022) R3. This shows that this brand is one of the top worldwide fashion retailers with one of the highest profits. 2021 was a much higher earning year compared to 2020 due to the worldwide lockdowns causing many businesses to close or to go completely online. The business luckily already had online shopping set up and so was a much easier transition compared to other fast fashion retailers such as Primark. This company relied on in person shopping and was able to undercut other clothing brands prices due to them not having online shops to pay out for this made it very difficult for that brand and saw massive losses within 2020.
H&M made 334 million dollars which is early only a 5th of what they made the previous year and the year after. However, the profits in recent years have been on a steady decline since their peak in 2010 earning the business 3.5 billion dollars (Statista, 2022) R3, just two years after opening stores worldwide.
The question of how they bring the business back up to the peak is a difficult to answer and we can see the business has been trying with their new conscious collection and by being more diverse we are yet to see the difference. It may be due to the let downs of the company I have already discussed. However, it shall be exciting to see what they come up next to stay with the ever-changing fashion world and how they may rebrand themselves to become a more sustainable and conscious company. This is why its my favourite brand as they always keep things interesting and will keep up to date on my favourite fashion trends and diversity.
Reference page:
R1 – https://hmgroup.com/about-us/inclusion-and-diversity/inclusive-people/
R3 – https://www.statista.com/statistics/252191/profit-of-the-h-und-m-group-worldwide/
R4 – https://www.bigissue.com/news/environment/hm-greenwashing-is-disguising-the-reality-of-fast-fashion/
R5 – https://qz.com/1971689/fashion-brands-arent-keeping-their-instagram-diversity-promises/
R6 – https://www.designscene.net/2021/06/hm-pride-2021.html