Swedish brand, H&M, has been taking over the world with its exciting, fresh and fashionable clothing range for a long time but it’s not until this weekend that the brand opened their very first store in South Africa. Customers queued for close to 24 hours outside the store’s first shop at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, proving that the demand has been incredibly high here.
Naturally, H&M threw a celebration of note as the brand enters the South African market with Ryan O’Connor counting down to the store’s official opening and welcomed customers to the two-floor, 4,700 square meter store. Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of H&M was on the red carpet to cut the ribbon and to welcome the first eager shoppers along with H&M South Africa’s Country Manager Pär Darj and Store Managers Andries van den Berg and Peter Johannes.
Since the line was insanely long, H&M South Africa gave the store’s first customer an incredible R2500 gift card and the 499 people after her a R200 gift card. The store saw a whole lot more feet throughout it’s opening day with the first 3000 people receiving a tote bag and gift as the brand made everyone feel like a winner. “We have had an amazing response from our customers here in Cape Town and we look forward to bringing H&M’s concept of fashion and quality at the best price in a sustainable way to South Africa,” says Pär Darj, Country Manager.
The brand also hosted an exclusive media and celebrity event a few days earlier and showed off the brand new store to guests such as Patricia De Lille, Kurt Darren, Goodluck, Bonnie Mbuli and many more. Presenting a wide selection of latest trends and timeless classics for customers, H&M will offer women’s, men’s, and children’s apparel and accessories as well as H&M Home with new items in store daily. The store will be open daily from 9:00am – 9:00pm daily.
While this is the only store open in South Africa at the moment, the brand will be opening its second store in Sandton City in just a few days. The Jozi store will officially open to the public at 11am on the 7th of November and I am counting down the days! I have been a fan of the fashion brand for as long as I can remember and I’m so excited to finally have a store only a few minutes away from home.
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