It has been the wish of many locals to have an H&M come to the Raleigh area. Today, that wish has been granted. The News and Observer is reporting that the Swedish fashion store will open a 21,000 square foot store in Crabtree Valley Mall.
H&M has a strong urban aesthetic that has displaced some of the more traditional looks peddled by other mall shops during the past two decades. The N&O cites a retail consultant: “Half the people who are now shopping at H&M used to be going to Abercrombie, Hollister, American Eagle.” But this guy is clueless, H&M has a cache that is fresher and more forward thinking than any of these pedestrian competitors. H&M will draw an audience well beyond the customers that visit those stores and its influence will certainly be visible on Raleigh’s streets. Already the neon hipster look that H&M has helped to popularize can be seen on teens and twenty somethings of both sexes.
Previously downtown retail advocates had hoped for a destination store like H&M to come to Fayetteville Street or some other premium downtown location. The idea that a store like H&M would draw customers downtown that don’t normally come there. Alas, the density needed for retail analysts working for big shops like H&M is not there yet. So Crabtree it is. This is great news for locals (as well as others across the state that frequent the cheap but fashionable retailer), but the fact that The Downtown Raleigh Alliance talked with the company in 2006 without making a deal is a bad blow to the future of substantial retail in Downtown Raleigh. One of these days we’ll be able to buy a shirt or some socks in the downtown grid, until then we’ll just have to settle for coffee, beer and food.
The addition of H&M to the area is also a substantial step forward for the lack of Men’s Fashion in the Triangle. (I am assuming they will have a men’s section like most of H&M’s across the globe)
Update Originally this post characterized the DRA’s talks with H&M as ongoing, when in fact they were limited to a period of time in 2006. Their newest wave of retail outreach has just begun.
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