Balmain x H&M: why the high fashion brand wants to be on the high street

This will be the 11th designer collection with H&M

Balmain x H&M by Mario Sorrenti, in stores on 5 November

A one-off collaboration between the Parisian fashion house Balmain and the high street retailer H&M will hit the stores on November 5.

This will be the 11th collection in a line of prestigious designer collaborations with H&M. The chain first started working with high-end designers in 2004 with Karl Lagerfeld. The series celebrated its tenth anniversary last year with sportswear designer, Alexander Wang.

The Balmain x H&M collaboration will debut on the runway in New York on Tuesday, but consumers are already planning their purchases on Lookbook.

How did the H&M collaborations come about?

Since Karl Lagarfeld collaborated with H&M in 2004, the idea has been to combine the price conscious retailer with a high-end designer. Each designer created a lower-priced capsule collection on a limited edition run of product. The launches have become something of fashion event. They attract huge queues of fashion fans eager to grab a piece of designer clothing for an affordable price.

Is it really profitable for H&M?

Official figures could not be gleaned. But it’s widely understood that H&M’s designer collaborations, released in limited-edition, make up a tiny percentage of overall sales for the world’s second largest apparel retailer.

This is already the 11th collaboration, why do they keep doing them?

Two words: Media attention.

Media attention and brand building, rather than profits, is often the chief benefit for H&M and other mass retailers who choose to collaborate with designers.

The success of these collaborations is not measured in dollars, but in overall media impressions, the metric used to determine how many times consumers read or saw a mention of the collaboration in the news media.

The Missoni for Target collection, for instance, was covered in the September issues of more than 40 magazines and amassed impressions in the billions.

In 2014, analytics company Crimson Hexagon examined 171,345 social media posts to gauge the impact of Alexander Wang x H&M on consumer perception of the brand. The firm found that general positive sentiment toward H&M accounted for 25 per cent of the social media conversation the week the collaboration was announced in early 2014 and 34 percent the week the collaboration was released in stores In November the same year.

Sounds like the pre-campaign is crucial.

Yes, H&M drip-feeds teasers way before the collection becomes available in stores.

For this collaboration, models Kendall Jenner and Jourdan Dunn hinted at the news on social media by sharing images of themselves with the designer The news was confirmed by the high street brand who released a teaser video on Instagram calling for fans to join the “balmainnation”.

“I want to talk to my generation − this is my main aim as a designer. H&M allows me the unique possibility of bringing everyone into the world of Balmain, getting a piece of the dream and creating a global #HMBalmaination: a movement of togetherness, fuelled on a hashtag,“ said Olivier Rousteing, creative director of Balmain.

The hashtag #HMBalmaination, created for the launch of the collaboration, has already been tagged in more than 12,800 posts.

Isn’t bad for a luxury designer to associate himself with a high-street retailer?

Not really, these collaborations are very lucrative for the designer. Stella McCartney and Karl Lagarfeld reportedly received $1 million for their services in 2005? Madonna, was said to have received $4 million for her M by Madonna collection in 2007

Anf the visibility is powerful too. In the in the case of Balmain -a growing but sub scale luxury label – it’s a way to introduce his brand on a global scale.

The H&M collaboration “will make the Balmain customer see how everyone wants Balmain but can’t have it,” the company’s chief executive officer, Emmanuel Diemoz, recently told The New Yorker.

“Personally, it’s an amazing challenge as a designer to make a collection for the street market and for the entire world. When you work for a superluxury brand, you don’t have so many stores, your vision isn’t the entire world. With H&M, you know you’re part of the world, you touch all the continents,” Oliver Rousteing told Vogue.

Just how cheap are these designer clothes?

Gigi Hadid in Balmain's dress (Rex)

It depends. The latest collaborations, Isabel Marrant (2013) and Alexandra Wang (2014), were two relatively accessible brands, but Balmain’s pieces are priced in the five point figures.

This means the Balmin x H&M collection won’t be accessible to just anyone.

For instance 'limited edition' embellished dress worn by Gigi Hadid to a New York Fashion Week party will be sold at £399.99. A bargain if you think that the designer’s dress can cost up to £7,000 and more.

Last question: who is Olivier Rousteing everyone talking about ?

The 29-year-old French Rousteing was appointed creative director of Balmain in 2011. Rousteing brought the label, which was founded by Pierre Balmain in 1946, back into the collective consciousness by building a community of over 1.4 million followers on Instagram. The brand was the first French label to pass the million followers mark.

Since Rousteing’s arrival, men account for 40 per cent of Balmain′s revenue.

He is a firm favourite with the likes of Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and many supermodels including Gigi Hadid, Joan Smalls and Karlie Kloss.