Designer fashion at High Street prices

Fashionista is looking forward to the summer in the knowledge that she will be able to add some desirable designer pieces to her summer wardrobe without the designer price tags - and given the continuing credit crunch this has to be a good thing.

Next week Fashionista is poised to visit H&M to snap up items from the latest collaboration between the high street cut price giant and Matthew Williamson and has now pencilled in 7 May in her diary too as a key shopping day. Why? Because that is when, courtesy of Marks & Spencer, Fashionista will be able to spruce up her summer wardrobe with a few more choice designer items at bargain prices. Zandra Rhodes is the latest designer to join forces with a high street store to produce a capsule collection for exclusive sale by the high street store.

These collaborations must, Fashionista thinks, be a successful formular for all involved. The designers benefit from publicity for their brands and additional revenue (to be welcomed at any time but especially now), the stores get increased footfall and takings and the kudos of being associated with a designer and Fashionista and her friends feel less guilty about supplementing their wardrobes with designer pieces. But one of the key features of a successful collaboration of this type is that the capsule collection is time limited and this enhances its exclusivity. This also means that realistically a designer cannot do repeated collaborations with different stores. The alternative may be to have a long term association with one store, but that is likely to have more downsides than upsides for the designers - in particular for their brands.

So, a one off short term collaboration may well be the best way to go and this means both designer and high street store have to use care when choosing who they work with. But for now Fashionista says "roll on May!" and wonders which designer will appear in the High Street next . . . . .

H&M is Europe's No.1 brand

Despite recently reporting a fall in profits, H&M has topped Interbrand's list of Top 25 European Retail Brands 2009 as Europe's most valuable retail brand. In a list dominated by supermarkets, the Swedish fashion giant topped the leader board, with Spanish rival Zara in 5th place, M&S in 6th place, and Mango further down the list but nevertheless featuring at number 17 on the list.

Interbrand suggest that H&M's popularity could be due, in part, to the designer collaborations the company enters into. The current capsule collection comes from Comme des Garçons. Previous very successful collections have been designed by Stella McCartney and Karl Lagerfeld, and next month will see the launch of Matthew Williamson's collection for H&M which, for the first time, will be available in all H&M stores - proving the popularity of the designer collaborations with the high street favourite.

Fashionista agrees that such collaborations are likely to greatly enhance a high street fashion brand's value and marketability, distinguishing it from other high street brands (of which there are so many). Such collaborations serve as a badge of distinction. After all, the "big name" designers have invested a great deal to establish their reputation in a tough industry and they will not want their name and brand associated with any retailer. Equally, the high street retailer is a fantastic advertising and marketing vehicle - exposing the designer and his or her brand to a far wider consumer group than normal, simply by being available on scale which is considerably larger than a select few boutiques, and generally at more affordable prices. Fashionista suspects that such collaborations may even act as feeder ranges - securing new customers for the designer's own collections as fashion-savvy young high street customers look to more adult ranges in the years to come.