French nix H&M on Champs Elysees
Authorities in Paris have denied H&M’s request to open a 30,000 sq ft store on Champs Elysees.
‘There is a risk that the Champs Elysées could become banal,’ Lynne Cohen-Solal, head of planning at Paris’s city council, said. ‘We have nothing against H&M.’ Nevertheless, she pointed out that clothes occupied 39 per cent of the retail space on the avenue, which was ‘the maximum’.
‘We want to maintain a variety of culture, restaurants and shopping,’ she said. ‘It’s important to us that the cinemas and the cafés remain. Oxford Street is a bit the example of what we want to avoid.’
I’m sure Ms. Cohen-Solal took some amount of pleasure in gratuitously slamming the famous street in London. I rather like Oxford Street, where, among many other hijinks, me and a buddy of mine met a couple of Prod chicks from Ulster, but she’s got a point, if you have street like Champs Elysees, you can’t let it turn into a street of the kind you can find in every major city in the developed world.
Retail analysts say the Champs Elysées is a prize location not only because it attracts half a million people a day - 850,000 on Saturdays - but also because of its symbolic value. ‘When you go there, you aim well beyond the French market,’ Emmanuelle Gaye, spokeswoman for Adidas, whose biggest store opened there in October, said.
In other H&M news:
H&M to open its first store in Japan, a 16,000 sq ft outlet in Tokyo.
The “master of low-priced high fashion” to collborate with Madonna, for whom the company will create a special line of off-stage clothes.
H&M’s rapid sales growth below expectations (”like for like sales” sounds pretty lame compared to “same store sales”).
Swedish tabloid Expressen claims to have “secured the future” for a 12-year old Thai who worked in an H&M plant. The girl had been placed there by her uncle which makes one wonder how much her future was secured: Perhaps working there was pretty good, if not, maybe the problem is the girl’s family rather than H&M?
